Let the games begin!
Thursday, 3 July 2008
Brian Downing (President Athletics NI), Maeve Kyle (President Ulster Athletics), Georgina Drumm, Aine Pobjoy and Ann McHugh (Athletics Ireland Juvenile Committee) and the Mayor of Antrim Oran Keenan pictured with Ballymena & Antrim AC athletes.
THE Antrim Forum will host the All-Ireland Juvenile Athletics Championships for the first time this Thursday and Friday (July 5-6) when almost 1,000 athletes will compete to be the best in the country.
The event is organised by Athletics Ireland and supported by Woodie's DIY and Antrim Borough Council.
This week's grand final follows provincial competitions across Ireland during June.
The Northern Ireland and Ulster championships produced some quality results with many of the athletes in the running as contenders for the All-Ireland titles.
At the Ulster Age Groups Ballymena and Antrim's Joanna Mills topped the podium on three occasions as she continued her amazing season by taking a long/short hurdles double to add to her Long Jump title and is likely to repeat this at the Forum.
Lagan Valley's Curtis Woods and Ciara Mageean will not be competing at the AAI Juvenile competition as they have been selected for the Irish team travelling to Poland to compete at the World Youth Games.
A number of athletes who have achieved the qualifying standard for the Commonwealth Youth Games in India will be in contention for an All-Ireland medal including Gaby McNally (hammer), Dean Adams (100m), Mark Patterson (800 m) and Ben Reynolds (high jump).
The battle will also be on for each of the provincial clubs to top the medal table in such a prestigious competition.
Antrim's host club Ballymena and Antrim topped the unofficial medal table with 17 gold medals at the Ulster Championships and amazingly out of 36 athletes competing, 34 of them have qualified for the All-Ireland final on their home training ground.
