UCC Athletics Club

The annual IUAA Track & Field Intervarsities took place at the wonderful facilities of Athlone IT  last weekend, the 20th and 21st of April, and a huge congrats must to go to the Organising Committee for the spectacular job they did - especially on the Live streaming.

23 of UCC's finest athletes, 11 male and 12 female made their way to the competition, with a fair share of drama breaking down just outside Fermoy! 10 medals were won in total, 5 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze, which was an improvment from last year's haul. The team finished in 4th place overall on 78 points - which was an increase in points of 50% from last year, and the Clubs best result since 2009.

Gold medals came from the immaculately in-form Clare Fitzgerald, who won the Shot Putt, Javelin, Weight for Distance and the Discus, in which she set a new personal best and IUAA record of 51.22m. If there was an athlete of the meet award, then surely the award would have been hers. Ed O Halloran also struck gold in the 110m Hurdles, never needing to get out of 1st gear and cruising over the hurdles to break the tape over two seconds faster than his nearest pursuer.

David Quilligan leapt to silver in the long jump by going out to 6.86m, 0.12m behind the winner. Caoimhe Casey flowed to silver in a powerful display in the 1,500m Walk while Niall Prendiville made it a double walks silver by racing a tactially astute race to stride home to the silver medal from 600m in the 3,000m walk, in a personal best and UCC record time of 12:52.

Ciara Cronin produced one of the gutsiest races of the weekend by placinig 3rd in the 800m, in a race which contained European Junior silver medallist Ciara Mageean. And Mike Conerney's debut for UCC bore fruit to a bronze medal in the Discus.

There were many more Top 6 and points winning finishing positions which helped carry the team to 4th place, and well done to everyone who competed. A special mention must go to Amanda Nevin who took part in the Triple Jump after some persuasion, as well as her specialist event the Long Jump, to finish in 5th place and win 2 points - without theses points, UCC would have dropped down to 5th by 0.33 points!

A full set of results can be found at http://sindar.net/iuaa/results/meet/266/

The club's AGM is on this coming Wednesday (25th April), at 19:00 in ORB 1.01. The main purpose of this is to elect the new committee for a very important year, including the re-building and re-opening of the track facilities at the Mardyke, and (hopefully) hosting the Intervarsity Track & Field in 2013.

Here is the provisional agenda:

• Captains' Reports
• Treasurer's Report
• Election of next year's committee
• Any other business

If anyone has anything to add to the agenda, please e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

All are welcome, so spread the word!

The IUAA Track & Field is on this Friday and Saturday in Athlone. The bus will be leaving from outside Castlewhite at 07:45 on Friday morning, and returning to Cork on Sunday morning/afternoon.

There is hotel accommodation at a price of €20 per night, and there will be an after-event dinner and party on Saturday night, also costing €20.

I'm told there will be a meal available on Friday night in the hotel for €10 per person as well, if people would like to do that, but that can be sorted out on the way up.

Have a great weekend, and good luck!

Munster Intervarsities are taking place in CIT on Thursday the 5th of April, anyone is welcome to come and compete and we are encouraging anyone who's ever wanted to try out any throwing or jumping events to come along and have a go! Maybe you'll even compete in them at the National Intervarsities too for UCC!