World gold for Eoin Everard as Katie O’Shea nets team silver

There was plenty of success to brag about with international and domestic accolades earned by Kilkenny athletes.

Kilkenny City Harriers (KCH) athlete Eoin Everard won gold at the World Masters, Katie O’Shea was part of the Irish team that won silver medals while the county’s juveniles won several gold medals on the first day of the National Juvenile Indoors.

Gold Star

In 2022 Eoin Everard competed at the Masters level for the first time, winning gold at the European over-35 3,000m championships.

He repeated the feat this year in Turon, Poland when he won the gold medal in the World over-35 3,000m masters.

It was a competitive race with Ricardo Paixão (Portugal) and Mark Husted (USA) along with Everard emerging as the main contenders for gold along with athletes from Italy and Sweden. Of the leading trio Everard had posted the fastest 3,000m time to date. Husted last ran a 3000m indoors a year ago and recorded 8.07, whereas Everard’s personal best of 8.03 was some four years ago. It was 11 years ago since Paixão recorded his PB of 8.23.

As the athletes took the bell for the final lap Everard took the lead, clearly pushing the pace. He was pursued by Husted, who looked like he might challenge him over that final 200m. Everard was pushed all the way to the line by the American but, digging deep, the Kilkennyman managed to hold him off to clinch the gold by a tight margin of half a second.

This was Ireland’s third gold medal on the first day of the World Masters Championships.

Silver for O’Shea

Katie O’Shea marked her first international athletics appearance by winning silver at the SIAB International in Liverpool last Saturday. O’Shea finished 25th and the seventh Irish girl home, moving up two places from her performance at the All-Ireland schools cross-country in Waterford a few weeks ago.

O’Shea has shown enormous improvement since she finished 16th in the Leinster Schools cross-country in early February. Two weeks ago, she surprised many by finishing ninth in the junior schools All-Ireland in Waterford, a finish which earned her a place on the 40-strong Irish junior team for the SIAB international in Liverpool.

Supporting her were her family including her twin sister Amy, who has also improved considerably since her own Leinster Schools race. Coach Michael O’Keeffe also made the trip.

Her meteoric rise in athletics ranks in just three months didn’t surprise O’Keeffe.

“Katie came to me at Christmas, disappointed with her performance in Donegal,” he said. “She stated she wanted to train hard for the schools cross country.”

Under the watchful eye of O’Keeffe, O’Shea and other Thomastown athletes who attend the Presentation Secondary School in Kilkenny braved the dark nights and often miserable conditions in Grennan.

“I knew she was going well” said O’Keeffe of her All-Ireland performance “and that she would be knocking on the door of that Irish team.”

The overall race was won by Lois McRae of Scotland with Sholah Lawrence of Dundalk the first Irish girl home in sixth place.

This now concludes the cross-country season, which will start again in September.

Juvenile Indoors

There was a great start to the first day of the All-Ireland Juvenile Indoors in Athlone as Kilkenny took home two gold, one silver and two bronze medals on Saturday.

While the day was predominantly made up of relay events, there were some older ages shot-put and triple jump competitions.

In the boys’ under-18 shot-putt Andrew Cooper (Gowran) repeated his stunning performances of the past few weeks and threw 16.65m to take gold. While it was not as far as his Leinster Championship record of 17.03 Cooper’s winning throw came in the third round with two other throws in excess of the 16m mark. Eli Dunne (Brow Rangers) finished seventh in the same event.

Libby Murphy (St Senan’s) was so close to a bronze medal when she threw 10.14 in the girls’ under-19 shot-put.

When it comes to relays, KCH are the county’s specialists - it is an event for which the club thrives on. This year pride of place goes to the girls’ under-13 team of Jasmine Timmons McEneaney, Mollierose Keegan, Emma Kelly and Amelia O’Brien who beat the much-fancied Belgooley to take the gold. The KCH girls finished in a time of 1.53.88 - two seconds faster than their winning Leinster time. Belgooley took silver in a time of 1.54.48.

The under-13 relays were timed heats which gave the younger athletes the opportunity to recover if they were doubling up as part of an older age group’s team. Which of course some of the Kilkenny girls were doing. In fact the under-14 team managed to take the bronze, with Mollierose Keegan and Emma Kelly doing another fantastic run. The girls were supported by Ellen Daly and Emily Long.

As if two medals were not enough, the girls’ under-15 race saw more replication of medals as Ellen Daly and Emily Long teamed up with Kate Maher and Martha Bergin to produce another podium finish. This time it was yet anther bronze with Belgooley finishing one place ahead in silver and Doneen, last year’s winners, repeating their 2022 performance.

There was one further medal for KCH as the girls’ under-17 team of Grace Delahunty, Pia Langton, Molly Daly and Hannah Quinn took silver, finishing two seconds behind Ratoath. Ennis Track were third.