Gold for Lynch, Vickers and O’Shea at All-Ireland Schools Track and Field Championships

OISIN Lynch, Ryan Vickers and Kevin O’Shea all won gold medals at the All-Ireland Schools Track & Field Championships on Saturday in Tullamore, with Kerry athletes picking up a further four silver and two bronze medals.

After clocking fast times in Belfast and Manchester, Oisin Lynch (St. Brendan’s Killarney) was the quickest on paper going into the much anticipated Senior Boys 800m final and stamped his authority right from the off leading through the first 600m.

However, things started to unravel as he was overtaken on the final bend before heroically regrouping again to catch up and inch away in the closing metres, taking the win in a time of 1:53:34, a fine way to round off his stellar schools athletics career.

Kevin O’Shea (Mercy Mounthawk Tralee) continued his record smashing form from the Munster Championships to clearly win both the Junior Boys Javelin and Discus throwing a best of 47.38m and 44.35m respectively, to leave him a staggering 10 metres clear of the pack in the Javelin and 7 metres in the discus.

The talented Ryan Vickers (St Brendan’s College) won the Minor Boys 800m in a time of 2:05:71 and then took the silver in the 100m. He rounded off a good days work by leading the St Brendans Killarney team to bronze in the Minor Boys 4 x 100m relay final.

Babatunda Smith (Killarney (Community College) was a double medallist, taking silver in the Junior Boys High Jump and bronze in the 80m Hurdles.

Kieran Keane (PS Chorca Dhuibhne) added to his national medal collection taking silver in the Inter Boys shot-put, with a throw just 1cm short of 16 metres for the 5kg shot.

The hard-working Eoin Malik (Mercy Mounthawk) had his best athletics performance to date taking silver in the Inter Boys Triple Jump with a jump of 12.30m.

Outside the medals, there were plenty of fine performances with Jack O’Coileain (Gaelcholaiste Chiarrai - Junior Boys 1,500m), Alex Collins (CII Abbeyfeale - Junior Boys Triple Jump), Dylan O’Callaghan (St Michaels Listowel - Inter Boys 400m), Anna O’Shea (Killarney Community College - Inter Girls Pole Vault), Kieran Keane (PS Chorca Dhuibhne - Inter Boys Discus), Liam Rohan (Presentation Milltown - Inter Boys Shot Put), Mollie O’Riordan (Tarbert Comprehensive - Senior Girls 400m) and Oisin O’Regan (CII Abbeyfeale - Senior Boys 400h) all finishing in the top six in their events.