O’Donnell and Murray Achieve Euro Indoor Standards

It was a successful weekend for Gerard O’Donnell (Carrick on Shannon AC) – 60m H and Declan Murray (Clonliffe Harriers AC) – 800m as they both secured the qualification standards for the European Indoor Championships in Prague.

O’Donnell was the first to do so when he competed in the IFAM indoor meeting in Belgium on Saturday, 7th of February.  O’Donnell quickly got into his stride to record a new personal best of 7.87 seconds to qualify for the final in the 60m Hurdles. He then went on to produce the run of his life to win the final and set another new personal best of 7.73 seconds. The time more importantly was inside the required standard of 7.78 for the European Indoor Championships scheduled for the 6th-8th of March. Considering little over a week ago O’Donnell hadn’t broken eight seconds for the event, this performance marks a big breakthrough for the Leitrim native.

Murray in Form in Boston

Murray was in superb form on Saturday as he front ran a 1.48.32 800m at the Boston University Scarlet and White Invitational. The time was inside the required standard of 1.48.50 for the European Indoor Championships.

Commenting afterwards Murray said “I went through 600 in 1:20 and brought it home,” he said. “It feels good to get the standard out of the way at my first attempt. I’m running a 1,000m at Millrose Games next week, and I hope to break the Irish record, then it’s off to Ireland for the GloHealth Nationals the week after that.”

The women’s DMR team were competing at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix, also in Boston.  The Irish quartet of Claire Tarplee (DSD AC), Christine McMahon (Ballymena & Antrim AC), Katie Kirk (Queens University) and Ciara Mageean (UCD AC) finished third in a time of 11:03.07. The race was won by US Team New Balance in 10:42.57.