GloHealth National Schools Champs

The GloHealth national schools championships were held today (30th May) in Tullamore, Conditions were cold, damp and blustery but nevertheless there were some excellent performances from Ratoath A/C athletes representing their schools.

Philip Marron won the intermediate boys 1500m steeplechase in a new club record of 4 min 31.25 sec. He made a break early on and was never headed thereafter and looked like he had a few more gears in reserve if needed. His next race will be the Tailteann games which also serves as a trial for the Irish team to compete in the schools international scheduled for mid July in Glasgow.

Ivie Okome was another to win gold when she ran a very impressive last leg in the minor girls 4 x 100m relay for Mount Sackville.

Matthew Buckley was most unfortunate in the minor boys 100m in that he pulled up after 5 m thinking there had been a recall but still managed to recover to take third in a time of 11.92 sec.

Deirdre Healy took the bronze (4 min 56.85 sec)  in what turned out to be a very tactical senior girls 1500m with Nadia Power and Cliona Murphy. Deirdre is using these 1500m races to hone her speed and will surely benefit from this when she moves back up to her favoured 3K .

Darragh Casey and Raphael McCaffrey both competed in the minor boys long jump and while they did not make the top 6, they will have gained from the experience of competing in their first All Ireland and their day will surely come.