Full results A crowd of 3,000 people filled the terraces in Morton Stadium, Santry, Dublin last night for the largest athletics event in Ireland’s capital for a number of years last night. Spectators were provided with excellent displays of sprinting, distance running and field events in the inaugral Brother Ireland Morton Memorial in good conditions. A large number of entrants for the juvenille and junior races started proceedings and this was followed by the first international event of the night, the men’s 3 mile which was won by Josphat Boit of Kenya in a time of 13.37.62, just ahead of Stephen Haas of the USA. The Irish Milers Club versus British Milers Club brought the crowd to their feet as young Ricky Stevenson from the UK bravely followed the pacemaker to build up a large lead over Adam Bowden and Rory Chesser. With a lap to go the clock read 3 minutes even and 19 year old Stevenson narrowly missed running sub four minutes for the first time with a 4.00.33 effort. The men’s and women’s 100m were exciting races with crowd pleaser Bernard Williams (USA) holding off Mario Forsythe of Jamaica and Andrew Hinds of the USA for a 10.29 (+0.5) win. Toyin Olupona of Canada had an excellent start in the women’s 100m and was chased hard all the way to the finish line by Irish national 200m and long jump champion and Lashawndra Ratcliff of the USA. Similarly the 400m events were close affairs with Greg Nixon lasting the longest in the men’s race to win in 45.75 and Jamaican champion, Rosemary Whyte winning the women’s in 51.53. German World Champion Betty Heidler won the hammer event with a 72.43m throw in the last round to pip Ivana Brjljacic of Croatia by a mere 5cm. Fomer Olympic Champion Kamila Skolimowska of Poland was third in 71.56m with Heidler’s training partner, Kathrin Klaas also over 70m. The highlight of the evening was the men’s Brother Ireland Morton Mile in which nine athletes broke the magical four minute barrier in a blanket finish led by Americans Rob Myers in (3.56.23), Will Leer (3.56.75) and Stephen Pifer. The Brother Ireland Morton Memorial commemorated the 50th anniversary of the 1958 Summer of World Records in which three new world records were set in events organised by Billy Morton.
The organising committee would like to thank their sponsors, volunteers, officials, media, spectators, managers and athletes for making this a special occassion.
Photos of the event are available on the Athletics Ireland website:
https://www.athleticsireland.ie/content/?p=4664
Attached are results.
Dr. Garrett Coughlan,
Meeting Director,
Brother Ireland Morton Memorial,
[email protected]
www.mortonmemorial.com
MOB: +353 (0) 87 13 13 146
FAX: +353 (0) 1 8063 952
From the AAI website :
Brother Ireland Morton Memorial
Superb evening of athletics at Santry Stadium
It was like old times at Morton Stadium tonight for the first edition of the Brother Ireland Morton Memorial. A respectable sized crowd and pleasant evening weather conditions ensured this would be a meet to remember.
Well done to Garrett Coughlan and his team for putting together such a superb evening of athletics.
Eileen O’Keeffe was present to witness some of the leading throwers in the world take part in the hammer, although injury prevented her from participating. The throwing competition was exhibition stuff and was won by the narrowest of margins by World hammer champion Betty Heildler with a best of 72.43m from 2002 World Junior champion Ivana Brkljacic with a best of 72.38m
Just a few metres separated the entire field at the bell in the men’s mile. American Rob Myers was in pole position and he held that advantage all the way to the finish to win in 3:56.23. The first twelve were under 4:02 and nine of them were rewarded with sub 4’s.
Stephen Haas tried to lead all the way in the 3 mile race but couldn’t shake the presence of Josphat Boit who upped the pace in the last 200m to win.
The Irish Milers Club duel with their British counterparts saw Ricky Stephenson take advantage of the excellent pacemakers to draw right away from the rest of the field and then maintain his advantage on the last lap to win impressively, just a fraction off breaking the four minute mile with a time of 4:00.34.
American Melissa Cook had to dig deep in the last 100m to withstand the challenge of Maria McCambridge in the 3,000m, with just half a second separating them.
Results
Once again the public address was excellent with Liam Moggan and Brian Maguire providing informative commentary throughout the evening.
Meanwhile, Roisin McGettigan recorded an excellent win in the steeplechase at Grand Prix meet in Crystal Palace.
1 Roisin MCGETTIGAN IRL 9:33.76 SR
2 Ancuta BOBOCEL ROU 9:37.45
8 Fionnuala BRITTON IRL 9:45.82
11 Una ENGLISH IRL 10:09.63
1,500m
9 Deirdre BYRNE IRL 4:14.25
