N Down AC Open Meet 05 April

Wed 6 April 2011--admin

The local outdoor track and field season kicked off last night with an open meet at Bangor Sportsplex. The hosts, North Down AC, were pleased with the decent turn-out for such an early fixture and City of Lisburn were happy to support the event with a small but hardy squad of half a dozen athletes. Conditions were very windy as ever at Ballykillaire but it did stay dry and there were several encouraging early season performances from the Lisburn crew.

The best female performance of the night overall was Kelly McNeice’s run in the mixed 3000m. In difficult conditions she ran an outdoor PB of 9:32.76 to finish well over a minute ahead of the next lady and behind only two men. This is excellent early season form from Kelly as she starts her build-up hopefully towards selection for the world championships in Daegu, South Korea later in the year.

In the 150m for women, Anna and Sarah McIlmoyle both had good runs – Anna placing 2nd in 20.60s ahead of sister Sarah’s 21.76. Anna was also close to 1.55m in the high jump but had to settle for 1.50m on this occasion which placed her 2nd lady. Amanda Mitchell had a good discus win in an Inter-Schools match on Saturday and threw 22m again here for 3rd in the senior discus event.

Adam Hill had a good evening, taking a surprise win in the the Long Jump with 5.55m, just 2cms shy of his PB. Later on he had the biggest jump by some distance in the mixed high jump event, taking the honours with 1.65m. He also went in the 150m on the track as a sharpener, running 18.83s in his heat.

In the men’s throws Jonny McWhinney’s 3rd place in the senior javelin with 38.48m was his best throw for several years and he was within a few cms of his M40 best from the indoor season with a throw of 9.64m when placing 2nd in the shot.