All-Ireland Schools’ Combined Events Championships at Athlone IT
Ella Nicholson was the only Bandon AC athlete who qualified for the All Ireland School’s Combined Events last Saturday. This year the venue was changed from outdoors to indoors and a long journey was required to the new, second to none, facility in Athlone Institute of technology. Ella had earlier qualified in the Junior section in Nenagh and was very keen to participate for the first time in the championships, from which the first four would go on to the International Schools’ Championships in Glasgow.
The standard this year was extremely high with the first five athletes scoring more than 3085 points, compared to the winner last year scoring 3006 points. It made for very exciting competition with many surprises. Ella started off with a very good 60m hurdles in a new personal best (PB) of 10.06 sec, which is also a new Bandon AC Indoors Club Record in the Girls U16. She already has the Club Record in the long jump with 5.27m, but with only 3 jumps allowed it proved quite challenging to reach that level. The shot put followed and was a little disappointing, possibly because of the larger size indoor shot used. The high jump turned out as expected, with the knowledge that an improved runup could yield a lot of extra points. With 1.40m Ella now shares the high jump Club Record with Emma Young. The 800 m set off at a cracking pace and leveled out with Ella moving up the field in the third lap and finishing almost 4 seconds faster than her old PB and ….. again a new Club Record (2:40:20). To top it all off, when the scores were added, a new Pentathlon Club Record resulted. All in all a great day out, with a well organised and well run event.

Report by Frank Stam
Photos by Susab Nicholson