Irish Masters T&F Championships

No stopping those WAC Ladies on their mission to follow their munster relay title with a National one! Jacinta Power, Suzanne Dullaghan, Gabrielle Blair and Elaine Barry were that winning team, in both the 4 x 100m and 4 x 400m relays, narrowly beating our second WAC team of Cathy Cronin, Maire Lawlor, Deirdre Chapman and Mary Jennings. The mens team of Brendan Aspel, Jim Baldwin, Eoin Palmer and Tom O'Brien got silver in both of their relays so the challenge is now on for the men to see if they match the ladies in the Indoors at the end of the year!!

Individual National Champions now include Jacinta Power (Long & High Jump), Gabrielle Blair (400m), Mary Jennings (800m, 1500m, 3000m and Discus), Suzanne Dullaghan (100m, 200) and Tom O'Brien (Long Jump). Some of these also won silver and/or bronze in other individual events.

Elaine Barry, Maire Lawlor and Brendan Aspel won bronze in their respective 200m, 1500m and 5K and Deirdre Chapman won 4 silvers in the throwing events of Hammer, Shot, Discus and Javelin (of which 2 only missed gold by the smallest of margins!..next year!!!)

In summary 23 individual medals and 6 team medals were achieved by the club so well done us!!! Team manager for the day Derek Grant says "Track & Field is where its all, and of course a bit of cross country, and a bit of road, and race walking"!

Thinking of getting involved? Contact Derek, Tom or Jacinta.

Cork Graded Series No. 5

A great night of athletics again in Cork's CIT on Tuesday last with the club represented by Pat Breen, Alan Danagher, Jacinta Power and Tom O'Brien.

Pat and Alan focused on the 800m and ran great PBs and Tom and Jacinta were using the session as a sharpener upper for next Sundays' National Masters T&F Championships and both won their respective high jumps. All four competed in the 4 x 200m relay and came 3rd.

Some photos from the night also!

Great day out at Munster Masters in Cork

With a medal haul of 37 medals at the Munster Masters T&F in Cork on Sunday Aug 1st Waterford AC had a great day out with great team and individual experiences! The ladies 4 x 100m relay got things off to a flyer in romping home with gold followed by the mens relay winning bronze. Other gold, silver and bronze performances continued through the day and all agreed it was an excellent day out for the club.

The ladies relay team was Jacinta Power, Gabrielle Blair, Elaine Barry and Suzanne Dullaghan. The men relay was Finley Weir, Paul Walsh, Frank Quinlan and Dave Drohan.

Other members who made the trip and enjoyed, competed, medalled, supported and/or officiated were Rosie Van Ver Valk, Maura Lawlor, Cathy Cronin, Deirdre Chapman, Derek Grant, Ger Nolan, Paul Connolly, Martin Flynn and Tanya McDonnell.

Full results on http://www.munsterathletics.com/ and thanks to the club coaches who helped out with the introductory days of T&F earlier in the summer in preparation for these championships: these were Albert Tebay, Derek Grant, Brian Swaby, Mal McGlynn, Jacinta Power, Harry Culbert and Tom O'Brien.

Many will now go on to compete at the National finals in Tullamore in 2 weeks time on Aug 15th and we wish these athletes the very best in their endeavours.

Masters Pentathlon National Titles

Well done to Waterford AC members Jacinta Power and Tom O'Brien who both won national titles in the Over 35 Pentathlon in Tullamore on Saturday July 31st.

Jacinta did PBs in the 100m Hurdles, High Jump and 800m and gained valuable points in the Shot and Long Jumps to hold out a very close competition and win with a very respectable points total of 1865 points.

Tom did well to come back from a fall at the last hurdle of the 110m hurdles to progress through the other events of Long Jump, Shot Putt, High Jump and finish with a win in the 1500m by a sufficient margin to win the competition with a total points tally of 2367 points.

Thanks goes to Coach Brian Swaby who has guided both of these athletes through this multi event discipline over the past year since both competed in the Indoor Pentathlons where Jacinta won Bronze and Tom Silver. Great to see that both have worked through the year to improve both their points score and finishing place and with the help of Brians guidance are now firmly established as multi-eventers and encouraging other members to compete in track & field events at all levels. Any members interested in masters multi events should talk to Jacinta or Tom or email tom@waterfordac.com for more information.

Cork Graded Series no 4

Well done to Keith Egan, Pat Breen, Alan Danagher and Isaac Lineen who represented the club at the graded series in the Mardyke, Cork on Tuesday July 27th.

Pat did an excellent PB of 5 mins 2 sec for the mile and recent recruit to the club Alan Danagher's training is really kicking in with a 5 min 17sec in his mile race. Keith was 2nd in the B 200m and Isaac was 3rd in the A 200m.

The lads got a super 2nd place in the 400-200-200-800m Medley relay. Pat lead off the team in the 400m leg and passed to Alan for 200m who passed to Isaac for his 200m and Keith brought the team home in the 800m.

Great going lads (and photos to follow). The last in the series will be on Tuesday Aug 10th with 100m, 800m, high jump and Javelin so any members interested in travelling contact Tom O'Brien for travel arrangements and entries. It might be a good outing for Masters athletes who plan on competing at the National Masters in Tullamore on the following weekend!!

Best of luck to all our Masters athletes who compete in the Munster T&F Championships at the CIT track on Sunday next and Jacinta Power and Tom O'Brien who compete in the National O35 Pentalon finals in Tullamore on Saturday. Lots of medal stories next week and fun days out for our members we hope.

European Masters Decathlon

Well done to Tom O'Brien who competed in the European Masters Track and Field Championships in Hungary this week. He competed in the Men Over 40 Decathlon and finished in the top 8. He set a new Irish Masters Decathlon record for Men Over 40 by scoring 4731 points.

National League Round 2

The next round for the National League is July 18th and the venue is Santry in Dublin for both Ladies and men.

Trials for the 100m and 400m relays will be on Tuesday next at 6pm at the RSC so all team members who competed in round 1 and anyone else interested in being involved should come along at 6pm. With the mens team in postion 8 out of the 16 teams and the ladies joint 8th out of 17 it is all to play for so all hands to the pump for the team.

Any queries to tom@waterfordac.com or Brian at 0872343520

The draw for round 2 is

Division 1 Men (Santry)
Ferrybank AC
Tallaght AC
Slí Cualann AC
Kilkenny City Harriers AC
Waterford AC
Olympian AC

Division 1 Women (Santry)
Clonliffe Harriers AC
Raheny Shamrocks AC
Wexford County
Kildare County
Waterford AC
Slí Cualann AC
Tallaght AC