Final Report-Irish Indoor Athletic Championships 2009 - Monday, February 09, 2009

Monday 9th February 2009

RTÉ Two and RTÉ.ie will broadcast highlights of the Irish Indoor Athletic Championships at 7pm on Monday, 9 February.

There were some impressive performances in the Woodies-sponsored Irish Indoor Athletics Championships at the Odyssey.

Class act over the two days was US sprint star Brianna Glenn, who was a surprisingly easy winner in the showpiece women’s 60 metres. She sprinted to the line in a classy Irish All Comers Record time of 7.31 seconds, almost 0.2 seconds ahead of surprise junior runner up Niamh Whelan of Ferrybank, who recorded a PB of 7.50 seconds. She was ahead of more fancied rivals Ailis McSweeney and Kelly Proper. Olympic champion Christine Ohuruougu was a disappointing sixth.

Glenn and Proper also starred in a high-quality women’s long jump. Again the in-form Glenn set an Irish All Comers Record of 6.53m from an equally impressive Proper, who equalled her Irish record with a jump of 6.32 metres.

A busy Proper took the spoils in the women’s 200m, in 24.20 seconds ahead of Whelan and a somewhat disconsolate Ohuruougu, who is clearly on a slow build-up to major competition next Summer.

In the men’s sprints, last year’s US runner up Josh Norman went one better on this occasion to seal victory in 6.62 seconds, comfortably ahead of Irish Olympian Paul Hession. Hession said he was content with his time at this stage of the season, with his main objective being the Berlin World Championships in August.

Former world indoor hurdles champion Derval O’Rourke, who is on the comeback trail after a lengthy injury period, had to concede victory to British international Gemma Bennett. However her time of 8.12 seconds was a season’s best.

There was an eyeballs-out confrontation in the women’s 1500m, between 16 year old defending champion Ciara Mageean and last year’s runner up Roseanne Galligan of Newbridge. Mageean set a blistering pace in a vain effort to get rid of her rival. In desperation the Portaferry school girl lunged across the finish line to record the narrowest of victories by 0.2 seconds in a huge new Irish Junior record of 4 minutes 20.88 seconds.

Recently Ireland’s Deirdre Byrne gave European Junior Cross Country Champion Stephanie Twell a close run in the Antrim International Cross Country. She continued this impressive form with an emphatic solo run in the 3000m where her sub 9 minutes 5 seconds time was not only a huge PB but also a qualifying time for next month’s European Indoors in Turin.

In the women’s 400m, Marian Andrews of Togher AC managed to wrestle the title from Slaney’s Brona Furlong with a useful winning time of 54.20 seconds.

Former Ballymena athlete Zoe Brown again broke her Irish pole vault record with a vault of 4.00metres. This is however some way short of her 4.26m PB, set five years ago when representing Britain.

Olympic walker Robert Heffernan made a valiant effort to break his own 5k record, set at the Odyssey last year. However his interrupted Christmas training schedule took its toll, and he finished half a minute short of the record.