Presentation of Prizes for Intersport Elverys League
Every Wednesday for the past six week our athletes have been competing in our winter league know as Tony’s league as it was the brainchild of Tony Shalloe.
The under 9’s and 10’s and the newest under 11’s ran a short lap(1000m) while the older athletes ran a full lap of the Friary (2000m). The league generates great excitement as there is both an individual and team element to it. Each week every athlete seeks to improve their own times and also earn points for their team. The team race depends on all the team members turning up each week and running their best times. If one or two of the team members are missing any night the team will slide down the rankings and find it very hard to move back up again.
On the final week the athletes all start at their best time with the fastest going last. There are prizes for the first two across the line. This year the top two came from the younger age groups with Cillian Pope first past the post followed by Oran Murray. Best of those on the longer lap were Ami O’Riordan and Conor McCarthy
Team Results
This year’s winning team was captained by Lauren Cliffe and all the team members put in excellent performances throughout the six weeks. The other members of the team were Ami Flavin, Cian Qualter, Fiona O’Riordan, Natalie Barry, Ami O’Riordan, Shane Power and Cormac Hallahan. They finished with a points tally of 881pts. Lauren was presented with the Powersfield Cup by Eunice Power and the team received their prizes from Barbara Harvey Manager of the Dungarvan Branch of Intersport Elverys.
Fia de Paor’s team finished second and included Sarah O’Riordan , Fergus Donnolly, Ciara Flavin, Leah Wall, Anna Rochford, Jakob Foley and Olivia Kenny.
In third place was Aoife O’Donovan’s team with Grainne Moore, Angelina Chizhikova, Ciara Quinn Jarleth Hurney, Ellie Mai Doherty and Oran Murray.
In the individual competition there was a great duel between David Gaffney and Cal Tutty to be named fastest boy. Isabelle Gaffney and Aoife O’Donovan ran under 7mins for the first time. Many of our athletes consistently improved their performances over the course of the league.
Individual Results
Fastest Boy David Gaffney
Fastest Girl Isabelle Gaffney
Fastest Boy under 11 Charlie Curran
Fastest Girls under 11 Nicole Cullinane
Fastest Boy under 13 Owen Morrissey
Fastest Girls under 13 Kyla Flavin
Most Consistent Sarah Gaffney
Most Improved Julie Novotna
Fastest Boy Short Lap Mario Zakis
Fastest Girl Short Lap Alicia Radley
Most improved since
Last league in 2019 Rory Donnolly
Presentation of Munster Medals
The younger club members were presented with their Munster medals won over the three days of the Munster Championships. Some had won individual medals that were presented on the day of the championships but the club and county medals were presented on the evening of the league presentation. Pride of place went to our gold medals winning team under 9:
Ellie Mai Doherty, Aisling Hickey, Sinead Houlihan, Ele de Paor, Leah Kiely and Isobel Daly. The medals were presented by their coach Antoinette O’ Brien.
Members of successful Waterford teams also received their medals:
Kyla Flavin, Isabelle Gaffney, Owen Morrissey, Rory Donnolly,Anna Rochford, Natalie Barrry, Jarleth Hurney, Ava Kiely and Cathal McKenna.
The medals for the older athletes will be presented at a later date.
The final task of the night was the distribution of the chocolate santas and each pod came forward to receive theirs before heading off for a well earned Christmas break.
Our thanks to St Augustine’s College for the use of their facilities for both training and the running of the league. Thanks also to Ger Wyley who turned up every week to look after the timing and of course to Lola and Tony for all their hard work in keeping track of all the times for the different team members. This year several of our parents came and assisted in the running of the league and we thank them for their help.
Finally we wish a safe and happy Christmas to all our athletes and their families and we look forward to seeing you all again in 2022.
Spar European Cross Country at Sports Ireland Campus
It is not often we have top class international cross country events in Ireland
so there was a huge crowd in Abbotstown on Sunday for the Spar European Cross Country Championships. We were not disappointed as we were treated to a feast of top class races. There was a large contingent from West Waterford at the event to cheer on local athlete Micheal Power who put in a huge performance to finish 13th and score on the Irish 23team that took the gold medals in the team event. Huge congratulations to Micheal it was a privilege to be there to witness your success. Micheal is the second athlete from West Waterford to win gold at this event but the last time when David McCarthy was on the team we could only watch it on the television as it was held in Portugal. Great credit is due to Athletics Ireland for a very well run event.
