A long and successful Track and Field season for local athletes will finally conclude in Cardiff this weekend when four of them are part of the Irish team who compete in the UK School Games in the Welsh capital.
These games were introduced four years ago as part of the talent identification process for 2012 and take a multi-sport format with most of the major Olympic sports being contested by U17 teams representing ten English regions, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.
The local athletes involved are the St Michael's College trio of Ciaran Dolan, Stuart Connor and Daniel Walsh, who are joined by Joshua Bingham of Portora.
Dolan will contest the Long Jump where he has had a mixed season, winning Irish Schools and Celtic International gold but having disappointing outings at the Youth Olympics in Finland and the AAAs in Bedford. The NI record of 7.04m has remained elusive all season and with poor weather forecast for the weekend, it is unlikely that Dolan will get an opportunity to approach this on Sunday, but he will hope to take a podium position to finish off a season of modest progress to date.
Connor will compete in the 100m and despite expressing a preference for the 200m he will know that if he can get anywhere near his PB of 11.06 set in the cold and rain in Tullamore in early July, he should certainly make the final and a top six finish is well within his capabilities.
Walsh and Bingham are both part of the relay squads, Walsh in the 4x400m and Bingham in a six man sprint relay squad which also contains Dolan and Connor.
Walsh has been unfortunate that his return to form from a knee problem came too late to gain individual selection over one lap and he will doubtless look to prove a point with a fast split on his leg while Bingham may find it hard to push into the starting quartet in the shorter relay despite having ran an excellent opening leg for the Irish schools team in Antrim in July.
It is an excellent achievement for local schools to again provide several athletes for the Irish team, following on from the five local athletes who competed in this event in Bath twelve months ago and will bring down the curtain on a season which has seen some outstanding successes in local schools Track and Field.
