Five Donegal athletes confirmed for AAA Championships

Five Donegal athletes are included on an Irish squad that will travel to the AAA Championships later this month.

The handful from Donegal are part of a 46-strong team that will compete in Birmingham.

Caoimhe Gallen of Lifford-Strabane AC, a double gold medallist at the recent National Juvenile Championships, is among the five.

Also included are Cranford AC’s Caolan McFadden, Emma Bonar of Letterkenny AC and Tir Chonaill AC’s Ethan Dewhirst in the under-17s section and Rosses AC woman Eva Logue at under-15s.

The Donegal ball is firmly in Jim McGuinness’ court - PJ McGowan

“I had been on the executive in previous times when Jim had applied and didn’t always agree when he was overlooked. But on that occasion I was the chairman and it was myself and Aodh Máirtín Ó Fearraigh who was the ultimately appointed him"

Gallen goes in the 3kgs hammer after winning both hammer and shot put golds in Tullamore. There, she threw the hammer to 55.12m and reached out to 12.39m in the shot.

McFadden took the 800m gold in 1:56.98 for his latest win while Dewhirst was the silver medalist in the 100m hurdles, going 13.82 seconds and only beaten by Stuart Tobin’s championship best of 13.51 seconds.

Log was the under-15 high jump gold medal wining when going over at an excellent 1.58m while Bonar won bronze in the 800m, clocking 2:14.60.

Athletics Ireland said: “This is an opportunity for some of our younger athletes to gain valuable experience of being members of an Irish squad and developing skills that will help them progress through the ranks.

“Each one of these athletes has achieved the qualifying standard at our Juvenile National Championships, no mean feat in itself.”