All Ireland Indoor Fixtures this weekend

Wednesday, 18th January 2012

On Saturday and Sunday next there are three Indoor fixtures in Nenagh and Waterford athletes will be competing in all three. On Saturday the AAI Games holds centre stage and also on Saturday the All Ireland Combined events are on the fixture begins at 11 am. Sunday will see the National junior Championships being staged, again at 11.am. The Timetables for all are on the Athletics Ireland website. On Saturday January 28 th the All Ireland Juvenile Indoor Combined Championships are in Nenagh.

Many all Ireland masters titles won

Athletes from Waterford and West Waterford won numerous titles at the All Ireland Masters Indoor Championships in Nenagh last Saturday. For West Waterford Terri Gough won the 200, 400, 800 and 1500 Metres o 60 and she was second in the 60 Metres, Miceal Downey was first in both the 400 Metres and Long jump o 35 and second in the 100 and 200 metres, Joe Gough won the 400 metres o 55 and this was his 60 th National Masters title and Sunday was his 59 th birthday. Des Feeney was second in the 800 Metres o 35 and Zintars Klava also had a second in the 3000 metres o 35. Waterford AC had wins with Tom O'Brien in the Long and High Jump o 40 Mary B Ryan Jennings won the 800 and 1500 Metres o 55 both in record time and she was second in the 3000 Metres,Kieran Leahy was second in the 200 Metres o 45 and also second was Pascal Halley in the Long Jump o 40.

The 24th  Annual Kiely Monumental Colligan Cup

The above fixture is on Sunday next in Colligan Wood outside Dungarvan This unique event will of course use as it has for the past 23 years the Timing handicap system, What makes the handicap timing system so appealing to all levels of runner's and joggers is the fact that every participant no matter what their level of fitness, have exactly the same chance of winning. All it takes is for you to know to the second exactly how long it will take you to cover 5 miles of the Colligan wood circuit. The Colligan cup as is now traditional is the first race of the four race Michael Roche Carpets Spring Series, please note this year there is no entry fee required for this series.Entry to the race itself is 8 Euro. Adult 5 mile starts at 2pm and the Juvenile Colligan shield starts at 1.30pm.

Winter League

Paddy Byrne winter league continues on Thursday evening at the RSC at 7pm, register at 6.15 pm and entries for John Treacy 10miles in Dungarvan have now closed, no entries on day of race January 29th.

Irish athlete in Trouble

Athletics Ireland on Saturday last advised of an alleged anti-doping rule violation by an Irish athlete. The matter they stated will now be the subject of a hearing before the Irish Sport Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel which was to be convened earlier this week. Under the Irish Anti Doping Rules Athletics Ireland cannot comment further until the Panel concludes its work and its final determination has been issued and this is only right The same day however a National newspaper gave the name of the athlete and lots of other

information.The test was carried out in the USA in December and it was an out of competition test. When you hear so much about the Confidentiality of all Drug Test procedures Saturday's publicity in the media makes a laugh of it and it hasn't been the first time this has happened.

Freely Available

On the subject of Doping all athletes and coaches should be aware of the many banned substances there are. Any athlete getting a concoction from a coach or mentor without knowing the dangers are leaving themselves open. Remember at the end of the day the athlete will be named and shamed and rightly so if guilty not anyone else. All the banned substances are available on the Irish Sports Council website, every athlete should make it their business to see them.

Patricia Walsh

With this being an Olympic Year we continue our look at Waterford athletes who competed at the Olympic Games this week its Olympian Number 4 and Waterford's first female Olympian Patricia Walsh a native of Ferrybank who started her juvenile career with De La Salle and continued her senior career with Waterford AC. She carved out a brilliant career at juvenile, junior and senior and she was a senior international at 16 years of age. She was a double National senior champion at only 17 years and in the same year, 1977, she represented Ireland in the European Junior Championships at Donetsk, USSR, where she threw 42.36m but did not make the final. She also competed in the 1982 European Senior Championships in Athens where she finished 15th.

It was in Los Angeles in 1984 she made her Olympic appearance where she finished 9th in the final of the discus. In the final, where she threw third in order, her throws were 55.38m, 51.70m and 53.32m, failing by half a metre to take part in the final three throws.She was National discus champion nine times (1977 through 1985), shot champion twice (1979 and 1985) and javelin champion once, she was runner up in British AAA Championship twice, she also won a FISEC Catholic Student games title. Patricia is Ireland's finest ever thrower and her Irish discus record, 57.60 metres set in 1984, still stands on the record books, she was one of the most popular athletes there has been in Waterford. She accepted a scholarship to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and she captained her University track and field team. Whilst competing with her University she won the Penn Relays Discus throw and was voted the MVP of the meet. She was selected five times as an All-American and resides in the USA.