European Silver for Ciara!

Sun 24 July 2011--admin

Congratulations to Ciara Mageean who has continued her incredible run of medal-winning performances at major age-group championships with a 1500m silver in a season’s best of 4:16.82 at the European Junior championships in Tallinn, Estonia.

Ciara’s record at this level saw her enter the straight final as one of the favourites and she showed her experience straight away by moving to the front from where she controlled the race. The first lap saw Ciara lead the field through 400m in a very steady 69:49. She was still in front as the field went through 800m in a slow 2:23.16.

With 600m to go the pace began to pick up and at the bell (3:15 unofficial) Ciara surged which quickly stretched the field. By the back straight she had broken everyone except the Serbian athlete Terzic and coming into the home straight Terzic was on her shoulder. As both athletes kicked for home Ciara fought hard all the way but could not live with the pace of Terzic who won with 4:15.40 and who had a great championships overall after winning the 3000m the day before.

It was another incredibly spirited run by Ciara who was beaten only by a last lap of probably close to (or even under) 60 secs by the Serb. Once again Ciara has done Irish athletics proud and the admiration of her club-mates grows even further after this performance.

Check out this link for full official results

http://www.sportresult.com/sports/la/ajax/eaa2.asp?event_id=10011600000001&ctype_id=11&module=competition&show=RL&lang=en&display_compID=54856

A video of the race can be seen here

http://livemanager.eurovision.edgesuite.net/eaa/site/index.html

*Congratulations also on behalf of City of Lisburn AC to Katie Kirk of Lagan Valley who ran a splendid first leg for the victorious GB 4x400m relay team,  making it a memorable afternoon for athletics in the province