Cork City Sports Delivers Again

The 58th Cork City Sports was every bit as exciting as any of the previous editions of Ireland’s Premier Sports meeting. The meet was held at the famous Mardyke, on UCC’s excellent Sports grounds.
Once again the big attraction for many was the appearance of Paul Hession (Athenry AC) who was attempting to repeat the 100m/200m double of last year. It was a big order this year with Brendan Christian (Antigua) amongst his rivals.
The 100m came first, but it was Christian who got off to the better start, and he managed to stay that fraction ahead all the way to the line – in spite of the urgings of the crowd for Hession. The winner’s time was 10.12, with Hession clocked at 10.20, although the wind was over the legal limit at +3.1m/s.
A re-match was on the cards over 200m, but unfortunately Christian had to withdraw. This time there was no denying the crowd as Hession took control of the race. They roared their support all the way to the line with the Athenry man crossing first in a time of 20.46, with the wind a breezy +3.5m/s.
One sprint where the wind did ease down was the B 100m, and here 6’4” tall Steven Colvert (Crusaders AC), a member of the Irish squad for the European junior championships, proved a worthy winner in a time of 10.65, a new PB for him and a legal wind of +0.9.
Another sprint with a legal wind was the 100m hurdles – without the injured Derval O’Rourke, who was at the track – her first time in fifteen years being able to sit down and actually watch the meet!!
Andrea Bliss (Jamaica) proved a worthy winner in 12.99, with Jenny Adams (USA) second in 13.16.
Racewalking received a huge boost when the 3,000m race had the crowd enthralled throughout. Local man Robert Heffernan (Togher AC) set the pace from the start, even though he was recovering from injury and found the racing experience ‘strange’. It didn’t take Mexican Eder Sanchez long to take over the lead and he quickly opened a big gap on Heffernan who was in turn tracked by Colin Griffin. The race looked over, but Heffernan found his rhythm and started to close on the leader. All through the last lap the gap closed, slowly but surely. With 100m remaining a win by Heffernan looked impossible, but he just did not give up, and he continued to close, aided by a vociferous crowd. As they crossed the line the photo finish was required which showed that the Mexican had just held on – by 0.08. A tremendous advert for Racewalking.
Heffernan’s time of 11:14.09 simply smashed his own Irish record of 11:27.06 set back in 2000.
Another race that got the crowd on their feet was the 400m, with Brian Gregan, on his first visit to a Cork track, powering his way to a superb win in 47.02, from Piotr Klimczak of Poland.
Anthony Leighio looked to have the junior 1,500m at his mercy when he went through 400m with a big lead. However, the windy conditions took their toll and the persistent challenge of Paul Robinson was rewarded when he overtook the leader to win.
Sean Connolly ran a positive race to finish third in the 3,000m behind Australian David McNeill, while Rose Anne Galligan ran strongly on the last lap to finish third in the 1,500m behind Judit Varga from Italy.
Overall this was another very successful promotion by Cork City Sports Committee, who once again take all the plaudits for bringing international athletics to Cork.

Results