White has to settle for second

Dunboyne AC's Padraig White secured second place in the hammer event at the National Track & Field Championships last weekend despite recording a better throw than the previous year when he won the title. His best throw this time around was 61.80m some 10m behind the winner Conor McCullough (Crusaders). White did have a big throw of 66m, but that was ruled out. White's club colleague James McCabe, who has still another year in the junior grade, threw a PB by an incredible 8m (59.05) to take the bronze medal. Another young Dunboyne thrower Caimin Dunne recorded 44.21m to finish in seventh position. On the track Rory McDonnell was aiming to run a sub-15 minutes in the 5000m, but he was forced to pull out of race. McDonnell started well and ran the first 1,000m in 2.58. At the 2,000m mark he was 5.57. The next couple of laps saw his lap time slow down and at 3,000m he was around 9.15 before he was eventually forced to withdraw which was unfortunate as the previous week he ran an 8.44 on the same track for 3,000m. Luke Forde was next to run in the junior men's 3000m and he finished in 9.07 for fifth place. Trim's Shane Aston competed in the national finals for the first time and his throw of 46m54 broke his previous best with the 800g javelin by three metres and earned him ninth place Joanne O'Sullivan secured first place in the 2011 Summer League at Dunboyne. O'Sullivan had three top five finishes in the league and ran a very good last race to take the top prize. Second place went to Warren McIntyre while Rosmary Higgins and Valaria Paradellas secured joint third place while the next position went to Berni McGrath. Darragh Costigan won the bronze medal in the All-Ireland boys u-15 pentathlon. He won the high jump, was second in the long jump (with a PB of 5.22), third in the hurdles and fifth and sixth in the shot and 800m respectively. Dunboyne's Deirdre Fitzsimons won her age category and recorded a sub-21-minute PB at the 5,000m road race at Carlingford on Friday. Fiona Reid was also in good form and was the second woman home. Tony O'Neill and Ray Mitchell were fifth and 12th respectively in their age categories. Bohermeen's Linda Gunning continues to dominate the masters o-50 grade with a fine win atCarlingford while also in the medals were David O'Connell who was third in the o-45 category with Ramunas Meskauska and Damien Hilliard others to show up well.