Collins and Cleirigh Buttner excel at Penn Relays

Collins wins 10,000m and Cleirigh Buttner anchors Villanova to Penn Relay glory

Sarah Collins (Providence/Finn Valley) won the 10,000m in 34:03.07 at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia last night (April 28th) while Siofra Cleirigh Buttner anchored Villanova to 4x1500m relay glory with an excellent last leg today (April 29th).

Cleirigh Buttner (DSD) got the baton trailing Georgetown by 6.2, Oregon by 4.3 and Indiana by 3.1 seconds and then blitzed a 4:21 last leg to give Villanova the win in 17:44.29.

This continues good Irish performances in the United States recently. Last week Cleirigh Buttner impressed over 800m at the Larry Ellis Invitational finishing second in 2:03.52 while Claire Mooney (St John’s University/Naas) ran 53.17 for 400m in Atlanta moving the Kildare woman to number 7 on the Irish all-time list.

Other good results in the States last week include Tara Jameson (Iona College/Sli Cualann) who won the 10,000m at the Virginia Challenge in 33:38.5 while Sean Tobin (Ole Mississippi/Clonmel) ran 3:42.1 for 1500m.

At the London Marathon last week Sean Hehir (Rathfarnham) was the leading Irish performer with a personal best of 2:17:20 and was the first non-elite home in the event.

A host of Irish athletes are competing at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia this weekend while Mary Cullen (North Sligo) competes over 10,000m at the Payton Jordan Invitational in Stanford, California on Sunday May 1st eyeing Olympic qualification.

Domestically, the main races this weekend include the Irish Milers Club meet in Greystones tomorrow, the Great Limerick Run on Sunday (May 1st) and the Belfast Marathon on Monday (May 2nd).