National Combined Events

National Combined Events and AAI Games, Santry

The National Juvenile, U20, Senior and Master Combined Event was held in Santry over the weekend with the pentathlon on the Saturday and heptathlon and decathlon running over the two days. The multi event is definitely growing in popularity as seen in the younger age groups with high numbers competing U14 and U15. Three multi event athletes from Kilkenny were looking to gain on their Leinster success at National level. Joey Nolan Nuenna who won silver at Leinster back in June was up once again in the Boys U14 competition but unfortunately had to pull out due to injury.

Mia Brennan Kilkenny City Harriers well known for her multi event achievements was competing in the Girls U16. Mia won bronze on this occasion with a total of 2832 points for her five events. Mia’s strongest event again was the 80mH where she picked up her highest points of 681.

James Kelsey who won silver in last years the U18 National Decathlon, was now competing in the U20 decathlon category over the two days. On Saturday James took the lead after the long jump and held the lead for the rest of the weekend. Setting new PB’s in the 100m, shotput, discus and 110mH, James took the gold after a superb run in the 1500m event, winning 617 points, his highest points of the event winning the National Title with a combined total of 5049 points.   

The AAI games were also held in Santry on Sunday along side the combined events with lots lining up to compete looking for times and also a run out before next weekend National Senior Championship. Kilkenny City Harriers had a number of athletes competing on the day. Aisling Phelan was running in the women’s 100m, finishing 4^th in both heats with 12.58 in S1 and 12.46 in S2. Kate Maher was running in the stacked 200m race placing 3^rd in her heat in 24.42 and 3^rd overall. Clodagh O’Callaghan ran in the women’s 800m finishing 9^th in 2:18:59. Alex Cullen took on the men’s 400m placing 2^nd in his heat in 47.18 and 2^nd overall. Eoin Everard and Kyrell Mtinsi were running in the men’s 1500m where Eoin finished 2^nd in heat 1 in a time of 3:57.23 to take 2^nd place overall. Kyrell running in heat 2 finished 3^rd in his heat in 4:03:36 and 12^th overall.