Mullingar Harrier Becomes Double European Masters Champion

Read the full update from this week's club notes.

Ireland had a big team of 100 athletes, including Sean McMullin, among the nearly 2,400 entrants for the European Masters Indoors in Braga, Portugal. Sean was entered in the 3,000m race walk last Monday afternoon and the 5k road walk last Saturday morning.

While all around him in the 3,000m indoor walk at the magnificent Altice Forum Indoor Stadium on Monday afternoon many were receiving warnings, and there was even a disqualification, Sean kept his composure and with a faultless display and great determination he stuck firmly to his race plan to slowly increase his lead lap after lap, pulling well clear to win with a big margin of nearly a half lap and taking the European Title. After the medal ceremony, Sean could relax and recover for the 5k road walk on Saturday morning.

Even though it was an indoor Championship, there were still road walks on the programme, and showing no sign of fatigue from his victory over 3,000m on the track five days earlier, Sean lined up early on Saturday morning in Picoto Park only a few minutes from the stadium for the 5k road walk. With another faultless display, Sean raced to victory with a huge margin of over two minutes to win his second European Masters title in a week. A fantastic reward for the all the hard work in training over a long time preparing for these Championships.

Here's the rest of this week's updates from Mullingar Harriers:

Looking to challenge himself ahead of the Leinster Masters Indoors in three weeks, Colm Walsh competed in the 5,000m race walk at the AAI Senior Indoors in the National Indoor Arena last Saturday morning. It’s a big step up in level, but top marks to Colm who stuck to his task and came home in fifth place in a time not far off his pre-race target, which will inspire him for his next race.

The entry for the 200m was so big, there were twelve heats and Charles Okafor drew the favoured outside lane in his heat, which like the others, was extremely competitive. However, it wasn’t to be his day and despite a good effort, he didn’t advance to the final. On to the 3,000m where there were two seeded heats with the medals decided on the fastest times over the two heats. Jamie Battle unfortunately took a fall early in his heat. He got back on his feet again quickly and ran on a for a few laps but was clearly troubled and eventually was forced to limp off with a sore calf. Thankfully nothing too serious, just a bit of bruising, so he’ll be fine again in no time. Euan Lagan battled hard all the way in his heat and though didn’t get in the medals, relished the competition and was rewarded with a new personal best of 8 minutes 51.16 seconds.

Shauna Leydon dug deep in her heat of the 800m, working hard to keep in touch, and even though she finished out of the qualification places for the final she was happy with her time of 2 minutes 21.97 seconds, which is a new personal best by 4 seconds. Shauna returned to the track later in the day in her more favoured event, the 400m, where her strength showed with a third place finish in her heat, out of the qualification places, but she was happy to be so competitive.

Staying focussed and with a polished run in his heat of the 1,500m, Colin D Smith cruised home in second place with ease to book his place in Sunday’s final. Sunday’s final was a race of two parts. Luke McCann (UCD AC) raced from the gun and quickly opened a huge gap on the pack, going on to win by nearly nine seconds. The chasing group however didn’t chase, opting instead for a very tactical race to decide the minor medals. Colin was right in the mix most of the way but when the charge for the finish finally came he was outpaced and finished out of the medal places in a messy race that he wasn’t happy with but he has to take some consolation from making a National indoor final.

On the roads and trails:

The Ardagh Challenge 10 Mile and 5k normally takes place at Christmas but due to Covid was postponed to last Saturday morning when seven Harriers athletes competed in very strong winds making it very difficult for the runners. The 10 mile had some challenging hills but all the entrants, including four from Mullingar, were just happy to have races back, regardless. Having raced the Turgesius 10 mile only a week earlier, Eoin Clarke was very happy to finish fourth in the excellent time of 61 minutes 31 seconds, placing third in his master category. Next in for Mullingar was Joan Flynn in twelfth place overall and second woman in 64 minutes 54 seconds, with John Bannon (81:09) and Martin Hickey (90:35) making up the Mullingar quartet. Three Mullingar athletes ran the 5km race and leading them home in second place was Alan Crowley in 17 minutes 22 seconds, then Linda Cunningham (22:50) and Aidan O’Donoghue (23:33). Excellent running by all in very tough weather conditions.

In dry conditions last Sunday morning, six Mullingar Harriers took to the hills of Mullaghmeen for a 10k race that took in Westmeath’s highest point. Coming home in an excellent third place was James Keegan followed by James Tierney (tenth), Kedagh Geoghegan (eleventh), Michelle Bohan (twenty third), Stephen Naughton and Anna Broderick. Following the very testing uphill and downhill route, everyone appreciated the refreshments of host club St. Brigid’s AC afterwards.

Andrew Nevin made the long journey to Limerick last Sunday morning to compete in the Adare 10k, which turned out to be a very competitive race. Andy stayed with the leaders for a long part of the race, and even though he was tiring towards the end as the leading group reduced to four, he led the chasing group and can be very pleased with his fifth place finish in 34 minutes 2 seconds. Andy will be hoping to run many more races on the road in coming months and we all wish him well.

Annual General Meeting:

Delighted to be able meet again in-person, the 2022 Annual General Meeting was held two weeks ago (Friday 18th Feb) in the Annebrook House Hotel, Mullingar. The numbers attending were similar to pre-Covid times, which is excellent and shows the interest among members on how the Club is managed and organised on their behalf.

Chairperson, Margaret Daly opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and introduced the Secretary’s report by Colm Walsh, the Treasurer’s report by Joanna Tyrrell and Competition Report by Greg Duggan. These were followed by Margaret’s own Chairperson’s Address. Like every Club in Ireland, membership is increasing again as we emerge from the Covid pandemic and the foundations in Mullingar Harriers are strong and membership will continue to grow as things get back to normal. Despite the completion of the new all-weather track, the largest project ever undertaken by the Club, the Club’s finances are in a healthy state. The financial report showed the tremendous part played by members and friends in supporting the various fund raising activities, without which we could not have completed the work. The invaluable financial support of the Sports Capital Grant and the tremendous private financial support from members and friends of the Club was also acknowledged.

The Club faces challenges in managing the increase in membership, due in no small measure to the completion of the new track and a call was made for more help for coaches, particularly with the younger underage members. A new position of Juvenile Training Officer was created to co-ordinate efforts in recruiting parents and others to assist coaches at training and identify those that might wish to coach field events.

Because of the surge in Covid infections around Christmas 2020 that resulted in a prolonged lockdown until late April 2021, all Clubs were closed for the period and the indoor season was cancelled. Thankfully there was an outdoor season in 2021 for all but the youngest members. By the time the autumn came around, there was light at the end of the long Covid tunnel and there was a full cross country season, and the 2022 indoor season is currently underway as normal. No doubt, 2021 was a tough year for the Club, but when members could compete, they turned in some outstanding performances.

One of the two stand-out highlights of 2021 was four Mullingar athletes competing at the European u/20 T&F Championships in Estonia – Eoin Quinn (800m), Oisin Lane and Matthew Glennon (10k walk) and Charles Okafor (4x100m relay) with a special mention for Oisin Lane who finished a fantastic sixth place in the 10k walk with a new personal best. The other stand-out highlight was of course Jamie Battle and Cormac Dalton competing at the European Cross County in Dublin, where Jamie finished fifth man for the Irish u/23 team that won team gold and Cormac finished a terrific twenty eighth place in the senior race, the third finisher for the Ireland team that placed fourth.

The following were elected as officers and committee members for the coming year:

Sean McMullin (President), Breda McDonnell (Vice-President), Margaret Daly (Chairperson), Greg Duggan (Vice-Chairperson, and will take on the roles of PRO coordinator, Registrar and Competition entries), Joanna Tyrrell (Treasurer), Colm Walsh (Secretary), Philip Burke (Assistant Secretary & Juvenile Training Officer), Tom McGrath (Minute Secretary), Pauline Quinn, Margaret Daly and Greg Duggan (Child Officers), Cormac Finnerty, Pat Muldoon Senior, Vera McCool and John Shaw (Trustees). The officers and trustees are automatically on the new committee, as are Life Vice-presidents Seamus Gibney, Cormac Finnerty, Martin Fagan, Bobbie Begley, John Mulvihill, George Bell (RIP) and Christy Creagh, and will be joined by James Carton, Declan Costello, Amanda Dalton, Catriona Duffy, Paul Ginnell, Sean Liston, Joe Ryan, Alan Sherwin, Tom Wallace and Sinead Whitelaw who were elected to the committee, and by Club Captains Aine O’Reilly and Ian McCormack.

Concluding the meeting, Margaret Daly thanked all present for their attendance and input and closed a successful AGM.