The 2007 track and field season may not be over yet, with the Celtic games, AAA's Championships and UK school games all yet to come, but even at this stage it has been a memorable one for local, young athletes and in particular those from St Michael's College.
Saturday saw the local youngsters complete a ten medal haul at the All-Ireland Age-group Championships in Tullamore, while in Antrim Stuart Connor was cleaning up golds at the Northern Ireland Young Athletes league finals.
'Dolan wins jumping gold' is hardly an unusual headline for the talented Enniskillen lad but this was a little bit different as it was the Triple Jump he was claiming gold in rather than his specialist Long Jump where he is currently ranked number one in the UK.
Dolan has not won a major Triple Jump title before and produced a whole series of personal bests on Saturday, despite a hugely erratic approach, his best of 12.46m taking the title and ranking his third in the UK in this discipline, another indication of his huge potential.
With greater consistency on the runway 12.75m is within his compass and he may well have a future in this event, as well as the Long Jump where he will compete at the AAA's final in Sheffield in a fortnight.
James O'Connor may yet have to capture a first Irish title but he is getting closer all the time and the slightly built sprinter once more saw off a host of Irish schools internationals from the previous weekend, in taking silver in the U-17 200m in an electronic PB of 23.25 behind Chris Lynch of DSD.
This was O'Connor's fifth national medal in the immensely competitive sprints and a winter of conditioning and gym work will see him push very hard for the top step of the podium both indoors and out in 2008 as he moves slowly towards the one lap sprint as a specialism.
Caolan McBrien is no stranger to the podium at national finals either and on Saturday he added the U-18 Long Jump bronze to his Triple Jump gold from a fortnight ago. His best effort, a 6.23m in round two was a legal PB but there is undoubtedly a lot more to come from an athlete who has yet to really find his best event having been competitive nationally in four or five different disciplines over the last couple of years.
Niall Cullen did not add to his 3,000m silver in the 1,500m but he did marginally improve his best to 4.17.17 despite fading badly on the last lap and he will realise that he needs greater strength and power to be competitive at the lower end of the middle distance range after what has been an encouraging first track and field season for the former Ulster cross-country champion.
NI LEAGUE FINALS
At the Northern Ireland finals of the Young Athletes League in Antrim, also on Saturday, Irish U-15 100m champion Stuart Connor took three golds in the U-15 age group, in the 100m where he clocked an impressive 11.9, 200m and the Shot Putt, while Gerard Maguire moved up to the U-17 age group where he finished 2nd in both sprints to Irish U-17 champion Scott Hamilton of Regent.
CELTIC INTERNATIONAL
McBrien, O'Connor, Dolan and Maguire have all been rewarded for their impressive achievements to date with selection for the Celtic games v Wales, Scotland and Athletics Ireland in Antrim this Saturday.
McBrien will compete in the U-18 Triple Jump and the 4 x 400m relay where he will be joined by O'Connor while Dolan and Maguire will contest the U-16 Long Jump and 100m respectively with Maguire also going in the 4 x 100m relay for the host team.
Dolan has been further selected for the AAA's Championships in Sheffield on August 11th–12th while McBrien is off to Coventry at the end of August for the UK school games where he will compete in the Triple Jump.
