An Mhodhscoil students win 4 All Ireland gold medals in Indoor Athletics Championships

A number of students from An Mhodhscoil competed in the National Indoor Athletic Championships held in Athlone over the course of 2 weekends in late March – they were 6^th class students Jed O’Dwyer and Molly Quirke and 3 students from 4^th class – Alan McCutcheon, Kyle Robinson and Yanna Leahy.  To get to this stage in the competition required long hours of dedication and training as well as qualification stages at County and Munster level.

All 5 students were on relay teams during the first weekend of competition and all athletes had to get through heats on the day. Molly Quirke ran brilliantly in her leg of the relay but her team just missed out on a place in the final. To reach this stage of the competition is to be commended.  Jed O’Dwyer was on the U15 team and they were rewarded with gold. Yanna Leahy’s U12 team also won gold as did Kyle Robinson and Alan McCutcheon’s team. Kyle’s team also achieved a ‘championship best performance’ time in their final.

On the 2^nd weekend of competition, Yanna Leahy and Alan McCutcheon also competed in individual competitions. Again, the process to get there required qualification from Munster finals held in February. Yanna Leahy reached the finals of the shot putt and threw a personal best on the day which was tremendous. Alan McCutcheon competed in 3 events – the high jump, 600m and long jump. He competed well in all his events – he was particularly pleased to emerge from the heats of the 600m and achieve an automatic qualifying spot for this final.

Well done to these 5 athletes!

– Verena Tarpey