A small Northern Ireland team of 6 athletes travelled over to the Inter County Championships at the weekend 4 girl’s, Kelly Neely, Joanna Mills, Amy Foster, Zoe Brown and 2 boys, Chris Reynolds and Adam McMullen.
Chris was competing in his first Northern Ireland senior competition in the discus, he finished a very respectable 7th throwing 43.90m, this was a bit below par but Chris has had an excellent and consistent season.
Adam McMullen was 4th in the long jump. Jumping 7.19m in the 1st round but struggled in blustery conditions to get another jump on the board, in what turned out to be a very competitive competition.
The girls had an excellent weekend finishing runners up in the Essex Shield with a total of 40 points just being beaten by Leicestershire with 41 points.
Joanna Mills start the weekend off with a win in the 400m winning her heat and then winning the final just under 2 hours later in a time off 55.36 seconds in windy conditions.
Kelly Neely formally McNeice was competing for the final time in a Northern Ireland vest in the competition in which she made her Northern Ireland Senior debut 16 years before. The BMC was incorporated into the programme with Kelly finishing 2nd in the A race just being beaten by a Suisse athlete in a time of 2.07.03 but scored maximum points as she was the 1st Inter Counties athlete to finish.
Zoe Brown managed windy conditions for pole vault well and won with a height of 3.90m
Amy Foster was a class apart in the women’s 100m winning with a time of 11.58 with a +2.3m wind. Amy was never under pressure from gun to tape and showed excellent form to win comfortably.
This new date for the Inter Counties with it being changed from its traditional date at the end of May possibly reduced the number of athletes taking part over the weekend coming at the end of a long season but the competition as a whole was responsibly competitive.
