Barr heads AAI Games with Euro indoor marks in mind

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Barr to star in AAI Games 

Thomas Barr (Ferrybank) is set to reacquaint himself with the novel 400m hurdles indoors at the Irish Life Health AAI Games in the Sport Ireland National Indoor Arena with a number of athletes looking for European indoor qualifying times tomorrow (February 2).

The 400m hurdles indoors was run for the first time in Ireland last year at the AAI Games which Barr won impressively in 50.50 seconds. It is a time he will look to better before taking on an indoor season proper which he hopes to culminate over 400m at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow (March 1-3).

The AAI Games will look to be a launch pad for those European indoors with athletes across a spread of events looking for qualifying times. The timetable for the event is HERE and provisional entries HERE

There was a number of impressive performances at the Irish Life Health U20 & U23 Indoor Championships and they will look to step it up once more.

Lauren Roy (City of Lisburn) won the U20 60m title and will have eyes on the 7.40 qualifying standard as will the likes of Ciara Neville (Emerald) and Joan Healy (Leevale).

Sophie Becker (St Joseph’s) won U23 60m and 200m gold and will step up to the 400m with an eye on 53.75 seconds – the qualifying time for Glasgow. Becker will face good competition including Davicia Patterson (Beechmount Harriers).

Cillin Greene (Galway City Harriers) will be in an equally exciting men’s 400m with the eyes on the prize set at 47.30 seconds with a number of contenders looking to challenge him.

Kate Doherty (DSD) and Matthew Behan (Crusaders) are two of the leading entries in the 60m hurdles.

Sarah Healy (Blackrock) will be one to watch, and to clock, in the women’s 1500m with the target time of 4:15.0 the magic mark.  

The men’s 1500m should see a good race with Paul Robinson (St Coca’s) continuing his comeback with a host of challengers including Luke McCann (DCH) eyeing 3:44.0.

Alex Wright (Leevale) who won the Slovakian Indoor 5,000m race walk is the leading entry in the walks and goes in the men’s 3,000m race walk.

The St Abban’s jumping duo of Daena Kealy and Saragh Buggy will look to excel in respective high jump and triple jump events.

Mark Burton (Queens’) is fresh off an U23 championship best performance last week and heads the triple jump with Keith Marks (Clonliffe Harriers) looking to go well in the long jump.

The shot put competitions are open and it will be interesting to see the marks hit.

Matthew Callinan-Keenan (SLOT) will look to continue his rise in the pole vault.

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