Queen of Claremont

False starts, re-runs and little brown dogs all contributed to the excitement at the Meath Track and Field championships at Claremont Stadium, Navan on Sunday where Tara Hetherington won the u-10 girls' title. She showed remarkable composure as she won 60 metres for the second time in three years. The first race had a false start and while the Dunshaughlin athlete obeyed the starter's recall, all the other athletes raced down the track. She initially thought that she had lost her opportunity for a Meath sprint title, like her father Paul over 20 years ago, but she was relieved when the race was re-run. She crossed the line first only to find that a stray dog had wandered out in front of the other finishers who had to ease up. The officials decided that as the other athletes had to ease up the only fair option was to have a second re-run. Once again she made no mistake and emulated her father in becoming a Meath sprint champion, even if she had to do it the hard way. The u-15 boys 200m also saw high drama as Sean McCullagh (Navan) and Andrew Coscoran (Star of the Sea) had a major battle as they came down the finishing straight. With McCullagh in the lead as they closed in on the line it looked that Coscoran would have to settle for silver, but as they dug deep over the last few metres the Navan athlete faltered and the Star of the Sea athlete took gold by the narrowest of margins. The senior men's 200m came down to a battle between the Navan duo of Joey Monaghan and Niall Matthews and Star of the Sea's Neil Dunne. Dunne took gold in a trilling race coming in with a hand-timed 20.8 seconds with Monaghan taking silver and Matthews the bronze. The ladies 3,000 metres saw the evergreen Mary Hanley take gold from Star of the Sea's Orla Timmins with the Dunshaughlin duo of Shauna Moore and Shauna Moran finishing third and fourth respectively while leading their team to the inaugural Kenny Cup. The men's 3,000 metres race saw a field of over 20 runners go the line, including the reigning All-Ireland cross-country champion Andrew Ledwith (Fr Murphy) along with up and coming junior athlete Darragh Rennicks (Bohermeen). As the runners raced the seven and a half laps, the young Bohermeen man stepped out alongside Ledwith with Gerard Heery (St Brigid's) giving chase. The Fr Murphy man, although capable of going the race alone, encouraged Rennicks to keep up the pace. In the middle of the race while Rennicks seemed to be flagging a little, Ledwith encouraged him to dig deep. Coming down the finishing straight Ledwith just stayed behind Rennicks' shoulder and the Bohermeen runner claimed his first Meath 3,000-metre title. St Brigid's runners, Ronan O'Reilly, Robert Caffery and Thomas O'Reilly finished behind Heery to take the team event and the prestigious Mattie McGrath Trophy. The high jump also created a stir. Reigning outdoor All-Ireland Champion Kourosh Foroughi (Star of the Sea) raised the bar to heights not seen before at a Meath championships. All the juvenile high jumpers that had competed earlier in the day stood by and admired the grace and ease with which the Star of the Sea athlete cleared the bar. After clearing 2.15m, to claim the Meath crown, Foroughi attempted to claim a personal best of 2.20m, but was unable to reach that goal on this occasion. Navan's Barry Kirwan achieved a throw of 48 metres in the javelin to take the first medal of the day while pushing guest thrower Denis Delany all the way. Delany, who is in the process of moving back to his Meath roots, was only one metre up on the improving Kirwan. Grace O'Sullivan easily retained her senior javelin crown with a best throw of over 33 metres in the ladies event.