IUAA Outdoor Championships 2019 – Report***

This weekend saw the Irish Universities Athletics Association Outdoor Championships hosted by AIT take place in Athlone on Friday & Saturday. Although the Ulster University Athletics team was missing a few athletes, the strong group who travelled were confident of bettering last year’s overall standings after two days of competition.

On Day 1, our two Jacks – Magee and MacNeill got things underway with Jack Magee winning the Javelin competition with a first round throw of 61.63m.🥇Jack MacNeill, in his first IUAA outdoor championships threw a brilliant PB of 46.82m for 8th place.

Emma McCay in her 5th year of competing for Ulster University battled her way to a silver medal in the 100mH (16.00).🥈 She also finished off her day crossing the line first in the 800m which gained her top spot in the women’s pentathlon!🥇

There were comfortable qualifications in the 100m heats for Craig Newell (10.99), Caitlin Maguire (12.43) and Janine Boyle (12.47). Ajith Joy, in his first IUAA outing over 100m finished 6th in his heat with a time of 12.74.

Katie Kirk qualified for the 800m Final, finishing 2nd in her heat (2.19.93) and Emma Hutchinson just missed out with a 6th place finish (2.29.84).

In the women’s Javelin, thrower Sarah Woods managed a very encouraging early season PB of 31.10m for 6th place.

We gained 2 more medals to round off day 1, with Alan Kennedy returning on his year down to finish a brilliant 2nd in the men’s long jump (6.85m)🥈 and Anna McIlmoyle producing the goods to take home gold in the women’s High Jump (1.63m).🥇 Teammate Emma McCay gained points in 4th with a best of 1.55m.

On the morning of Day 2, Niamh Malone (400mH) ran a brilliant 350m before hitting hurdle 10 on the home straight and awkwardly landing on her ankle. The Scholar kept fighting to the end and was rewarded with a silver medal (64.45).🥈

In the Final of the 100m, we had both our girls on the start line and after great starts, Caitlin Maguire finished 4th (12.26) with a time very close to her PB, and Janine Boyle in her first 100m after a long injury finished a brilliant 6th (12.38).

Pocket rocket and scholar Craig Newell lined up in the final of the men’s 100m hoping to better his PB from day 1. He was rewarded with another sub 11 clocking, this time a PB of 10.93 for 2nd place.🥈
Soon after, Craig was back in the 200m Final and placed 2nd (21.62) behind ITC’s Marcus Lawler, running an outdoor PB and breaking the UU 200m outdoor record which has stood since 1989.🥈⚡️

Another silver was collected soon after, this time by 2014 CWG 800m runner, Katie Kirk, who continues her return from injury, clocking 2.14.09 in the 800m Final.🥈

A second UU record was broken, this time by Scholar Eimear Fitzpatrick, who took 11 seconds off her own 3000m Steeplechase record (11.59.39), when she gained silver in a new PB of 11.48.43.🥈⚡️

Our throwers took their place in the WFD event and Sarah Woods finished 8th (4.80m), Conor McLoughlin threw a PB of 7.03m to place 8th and Jack MacNeill returned, throwing 6.23m for 10th.

The event concluded with the relays and were eventful as always. Our 4×400m girls (Emma McCay, Eimear Fitzpatrick, Emma Hutchinson, Katie Kirk) ran strongly to place 4th (4.05.48) in a competitive race. In the women’s 4×100m, Niamh Malone was unfortunately sidelined after her 400mH race and Emma McCay (who already had put in a pentathlon shift) stepped up. The practice paid off as our team of Emma McCay, Caitlin Maguire, Emma Hutchinson passed the baton to anchor, Janine Boyle very much in contention. After an unfortunate injury to the NUIG athlete, Janine chased her down and managed to reach the line in first place (49.66).🥇

We wish her a speedy recovery 💙

This was Ulster University Athletics Club’s most successful championships since 2006 with the team moving up from 9th in the 2018 overall rankings to 5th. The men’s team climbed 9 places, moving from 15th to 6th, and women’s team improved from 6th in 2018 to an unbelievable 2nd this year! With more than twice as many medals (11) as last year (5), this gives the team an amazing platform to work on in coming years! 💪🏼

Also a special thanks must go to AIT Athletics for hosting such a fantastic championships and for putting together a great night at the banquet afterwards 💃

And to our Physio for the duration – Andrew Creaney who provided invaluable support to the athletes throughout! Many thanks!👌🏼

Next up for UU athletes is the British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) Championships from 4-6 May.

#iuaaoutdoors19
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