ALSAA
Siobhan Keenehan regained the Women’s 800 metres title and Peter Arthur won his first club track championship on a nice summer’s evening at ALSAA.
With the defending champion Sile Carroll having beaten Siobhan at the previous weeks Graded Meeting the scene was set for a real battle as the record field for a women’s title race set out for two laps. The two main protagonists had detached themselves from the remainder of the field reaching the bell in 70 secs. There was quite a battle for the bronze medal as Eimear and Lauryn were only separated by a matter of strides.
As the leaders entered the straight it was Siobhan’s superior sprint that proved best as she edged ahead to win in a Championship best performance of 2m24.5s with Sile 8 tenths behind. Eimear Nic An Bhaird ran a huge personal best to take her first club championship medal ahead of Lauryn Sullivan who has also running considerably faster than ever before. There were quite a few p.b’s with Frances, Sinead, Alison and Eileen all making their Liffey Valley debuts.
Peter Arthur has transferred his excellent cross country season to the track to good effect and he left no one in doubt about his intentions as he took the race along at the front with an opening lap of 57 seconds in the men’s title race. Ciaran Reilly and Mike Griffin both former winners were chasing him. Peter ran 2m01s last week and the two minute barrier was clearly on his mind as he strode down the back straight. At that point there was little doubt about the outcome but time on the clock was the question and he broke the tape in 2m00.9s a personal best by one tenth of a second. Ciaran Reilly took silver and Mike Griffin bronze.
The second race was won by Stephen O’Brien making his track debut followed home by his Brother Peter also his having first race on the track with Paul Quinn third. Thirty athletes in action was a record number for the combined races.