Ruairi Finnegan (Letterkenny AC) has put in a tremendous performance to won the 1500m at the EYOF’s in Trabzon Turkey today. Finnegan was lead the race throughout, with 120m to go he moved away from the rest of the leading pack, to win in convincing style in 3:53.78. Samuele Dini of Italy was second in 3.54.45. Ireland last won a medal in the 1500m at the EYOF’s back in 2003 when Colin Costello won silver in 3.58.58.
In the girl’s 1500m Siofra Cleirigh Buttner (DSD AC) also produced the goods and finished second in 4.26.42. Siofra was part of the leading break-away pack of five after the opening lap. In the closing stages it was a battle between Sophie Riches of Great Britain and the Dundrum athlete with Riches pulling away to won the race in 4.25.95. Siofra joins other previous Irish medallist including Ciara Mageean who won the event in 2009 in 4:15.46 and Maria Lynch a follow DSD athlete who won bronze in 1995.
The was further good news earlier in the day when Marcus Lawler (St.Laurence O’Toole’s) improved his own Irish Youth record by one hundredth of a second, when winning his heat in 21.62. Lawler who is fifth fastest going into the final will have every chance to be in the medal hunt with four of the top five athletes all having times within three hundredths of each other. Ciara Giles Doran (Ferrybank AC) has qualified into the 200m semi-final running 24.62 to finish second in her heat.
Twins, Megan and Ben Kiely of Ferrybank AC have both qualified into the 400m hurdles final. Megan finished second in her heat in 1:01.28 and is second fastest going into final. While brother Ben is third fastest going into the final after finishing third in his heat in 53.86
Image courtesy James Veale