Shining Silver Success
It has been a busy start to the semester for the athletes of Hazelwood College, competing on the provincial, national and even international arenas as they arena.
To start with, the most noteworthy Hazelwood athlete is Noelle Lenihan. Noelle, a fifth year student in Hazelwood travelled to Doha in Qatar to compete in the World Para Games in the discus. Travelling out to Doha, her personal best in the discus was just over 30m, which saw her ranked third in the world rankings. Noelle, accompanied by her father and coach and Dave Mc Sweeney, got a week to practice in Doha leading up to the games. During this week, Noelle indicated that things were looking good with consistent throws in the range of her personal best. This put her in good fettle for the competition. On the day of the competition Noelle, described as being as cool as a breeze, showed none of the normal nerves with a first international competition. Her first throw was a personal best just over 31m, putting her in second place. He second round throw of 31.68m was her furthest throw, cementing her silver medal. A silver medal at a world championship is a massive achievement, but what makes this even more impressive was that Noelle was competing against senior athletes. She was the youngest in the competition, by far. On top of this, her silver medal throw was a world record for her classification.
Hazelwood College wishes to extend Noelle and her family huge congratulations on her achievement. On the provincial front,
Hazelwood College sent a team of four athletes to the Munster Schools’ Combined Events Finals. Jack McCarthy competed in junior boys’ competition. This was his first time competing in combined events. The events for the boys included the 60m hurdles, long jump, shot putt, 200m and the 800m. Jack competed well, getting personal bests in the 60m hurdles, long jump and 800m, ultimately finishing fourteenth out of a field of fifty three.
Kevin O’Leary and Ethan Knipe competed in the intermediate boys’ competition. Both boys recorded more than one personal best in their competitions, Ethan ran a time of 28.7s for his 200m, taking one second off his personal best. Kevin recorded 3 personal bests, including 8.38m in the shot, 26.8 in the 200m and 2.35 in the 800m. These results placed Ethan and Kevin in 17th and 9th place respectively, out of a field of 32. With a further season of training under their belts, they will surely contend for medals next year.
Laoise Bennis competed in the senior girls’ competition. Although she was not in top form, due to missing training due to injury, she still did enough to secure the gold medal and qualification for the national combined events final in Athlone. The extra couple of weeks training between the Munsters and the Nationals stood to Laoise. She was able to improve her measure in the high jump to 1.52m and her long jump to 4.40m to put her in contention for the gold medal. However lack of time to train over hurdles and shot saw the leader open a gap that was going to be hard to catch. Going into the 800m, Laoise was in second place needing to beat the girl in first place by 20 seconds. She went out hard in the 800m, opening a lead of 7 seconds. However the leader spotted the gap and worked her way back onto Laoise’s shoulder to just pass her on the line. This meant that Laoise would have to settle for silver. It is worth mentioning that this is the first ever National Secondary School medal won by a Hazelwood College Athlete. Considering the form and improvements made by other Hazelwood athletes, this will not be the last.
