Encouraging Final Day for Irish Athletes at European Junior Championships

The Final Day 4 of these well-organised European Athletics Junior Championships saw six members of the Irish team continue to perform in three final events as the team started on Thursday, with passion and real determination.

Ben Kiely (Ferrybank AC) headed into today's final of the Men's 400m Hurdles the 4th fastest on paper having set not one but two personal bests at these championships to 51.65 seconds for this most challenging of one-lap events. Drawn in 'blind' lane 8, the Waterford man knew that the two Russian athletes from his semi yesterday would be the danger to the field in the middle lanes, and so it proved.

Kiely got out well from the blocks and ran his own race to finish a commendable 6th place this afternoon in a competitive 51.98 seconds, and was given the same time as the 5th place athlete Pavel Agafonov, which was a PB for the Russian. The gold and silver medals were won by Agafonov's two compatriots, the former in a remarkable new championship best performance time and PB of 49.23 for Timofey Chalyy.

Kiely will take heart though to have come to these European Junior Championships and, on a quite late qualifying B-standard time - to have made the final, to have been competitive in it, and to have improved his PB twice en-route to it.

The Women's 5000m featuring Sarah Collins (Finn Valley AC) was run in challenging conditions on a very wet track after rain storms hit Rieti this afternoon.

In the event, Collins, who set her NJR of 16.19.80 for the distance earlier this season, ran a most positive race and went with the leaders after 1k and got away with a leading group of six athletes from the field. In the latter stages, four of this leading group broke clear with the Dutch athlete Jip Vastenburg taking the gold in 16.03.31. Collins finished strongly with the leading chasing group of three athletes for a very commendable 7th place finish in 16.33.54 seconds, in what was a big field of 15 plus athletes racing for medals.


Ireland's 4 x 100m Men's Relay team were most unlucky this morning not to progress to this afternoon's final, when they finished a notable 4th in their first semi-final but in the excellent time of 40.60 seconds, a new national junior record. The line up of Keith Pike (Clonliffe Harriers), Dean Power (Tullamore Harriers), Kieran Elliott (North Sligo AC) to final leg runner, 200m 4th place finisher Marcus Lawler (St L O'Toole AC), gave it everything they had and so very nearly made it to the final, which they on balance deserved to do.

The Irish team's time of 40.60 seconds was put out as exactly the same as the Spanish teams, who were then given the 3rd place nod - and the coveted automatic final place spot.

There were grounds at this time to be reasonably optimistic that this young but highly talented Irish team would take one of the two fastest loser places up for grabs from the second semi, but unfortunately the gods were not with them on this occasion - and the spots went to Britain and Portugal with 39.96 and 40.32, after a controversial solo re-run for the British team following an appeal.

Nonetheless the team will rightly be proud of their performance and particularly their new national junior record time, improving the previous best of 40.99 seconds set only last May.

Ireland's brilliant silver medal winning athlete at these championships in the women's 100m Hurdles from yesterday, Sarah Lavin (Emerald AC), was understandably very pleased today with her performances over the last three days.

Lavin created a piece of Irish Athletics history yesterday when she became the first Irish athlete to win a hurdles medal of any colour at an international Junior or U23 championships.

Yesterday's 100m hurdles final was not uneventful though for the field, with the German Franziska Hofmann, a medal rival of Lavin's, false starting and being disqualified.

In the event, Lavin had a good start and found herself in 3rd place from almost the 2nd hurdle. While keeping the Frenchwoman Heloise Kane in her sights to her right, Lavin then drove home hard off the last hurdle to take the silver medal in 13.34 seconds, improving her own NJR in style in the process. The gold going to the firm favourite Noemi Zabaren (SUI) in 13.17 seconds.

Sarah Lavin:

"I woke up this morning and was just delighted I still had the medal with me! It was a real high pressure race for all the girls and I'm happy I was able to pull a good race together. I didn't hit any hurdles in the final, but I did in the previous rounds, so I was to happy to have run a clean race. I might have started just a little bit harder perhaps in the final and got a little closer to the Swiss winner but all in all I'm really pleased.

"My parents are with me here in Rieti too this trip and that's been great. There's been a great team atmosphere over the last few days and I think we all pushed each other on to solid performances. I'm looking forward to relaxing at the banquet tonight with the rest of the team as last night I had an early night! I'd just like to thank my coach Noelle (Morrissey) and my parents for all their help."


All in all this was most a impressive weekend's performance by this twenty strong Irish European Junior Athletics Team, which will plan to utilise the invaluable experience gained from the top-class international competition this weekend and take it to the next level of their athletics careers going forward.

Altogether Ireland had a very positive number of 9 athletes in the top European 8 in their respective events, including one silver medal and two new national junior records.


Jacqui Freyne, Team Manager:

" I'm delighted for this team. They performed under real pressure this weekend. We had a number of finalists and altogether four fourth place finishes; with a little bit of luck we could have brought home one or two more medals for sure."


Kevin Ankrom, High Performance Director, Athletics Ireland:

"We can see through the points table today that our programme has stepped a level and it is great to see Sarah Lavin run so consistently through the rounds and put together a medal winning performance, as well as a new national record. The amount of finalist and fourth places is a great tribute to the hard work of the athletes and coaches, and I am confident that we can continue to improve."