Andrew helps Ireland to silver in Glasgow

Sat 3 December 2011--admin

Congratulations to Andrew Hutchinson who gave a very good account of himself in the Kelvin Hall, Glasgow today at the Schools Combined Events International. Andrew qualified for the Irish team after his silver at the Irish Schools multi-events in September.

With this being Andrew’s first serious year in athletics he had not competed indoors before, but competed well across all five events in Scotland to finish an impressive 5th out of 16 athletes in the U16 event. This was even more impressive as a hamstring niggle had restricted his training in the weeks leading up to the event. English athletes filled the first three places with Ireland’s Sam Healey just ahead in 4th.

Andrew opened with 8.96s for his debut over the 60m hurdles and followed this with a 10.78m outright PB in the shot. He then ran a solid 25.17s for the 200m on the undulating Kelvin Hall boards which can be notoriously difficult to negotiate. His long jump of 5.66m compared favourably with his best of 5.75m outdoors, although he was disappointed as the six metre barrier has been breached in training but this will come next year. He finished with 2:16.47 for the 800m which was also close to his outdoor best.

This excellent contribution helped Ireland to team silver in the four-way international.