Athletics: Doireann does Meath proud in league final
Wednesday July 30 2008
Star of the Sea's Doireann Meade achieved a lifetime best and won a richly deserved bronze medal in the wake of a scintillating show at the final of last weekend's ESB National Track and Field League.
A team competition covering the 21 disciplines involved in athletics, the ESB league is one of the highlights of the athletics calendar and this year's event was held in beautiful weather on the grounds of Tullamore Harriers.
Meath athletics, drawing the best from all the clubs in the county, had both Men's and Ladies teams through to the final ' the men in the Premier Division and the ladies in Division 1.
The Ladies finished the day in bronze medal position and have now medalled in this competition in three of the last four years. The Men's team, which came into the competition in seventh place, finished the day in fourth, just outside the medals.
As far as Star of the Sea AC was concerned, Doireann Meade was the star of the show for Meath. Her form this season has been mixed and picking up a slight niggle in her calf during the practice jumps didn't encourage thoughts of a podium placing.
She opened with a jump of 4.93m and at the end of round three she stood in second place, Hannah Lewis leading the competiton with a jump of 5.78m. Round four saw third placed Hannah Todd clear 5.13m, but the Star of the Sea athlete responded with a leap of 5.14m to immediately recapture the silver medal-winning position.
In round six Todd stretched her jump out to 5.27m. With Meath team manager Gerard Heery urging her on, Meade made one last big effort. She hit the board perfectly, nailing a jump of 5.22m, 5cm away from silver and a new personal best.
The men's team, fourth in the Premier Division, had three representatives from Star of the Sea. Ger Nagle was in action in both the discus and shot. He threw 12.68m in the shot, narrowly losing out on maxi-mum points to Luke Mangan (12.93m) from Clonliffe Harriers. The discus competition saw Nagle finish in the bronze, throwing 43.11m.
The high jump saw Premier and Division 1 teams com-peting together and this turned into a cracking competition, with Star of the Sea's Kourosh Foroughi victorious. Foroughi moved immediately to the javelin run-way where he went very close to equalling his season's best with a throw of 45.37m, finishing fifth.
Barry Delany did not disappoint in his specialist discipline, the 56lb for distance, throwing the lead out to 6.92m to claim silver.
