Athletics: Once a year the young, raw talents of Irish athletics come to Tullamore and provide a snapshot of the future. A decade's worth of potential in one afternoon. Soon all hope in the sport is renewed, and optimism restored, and Saturday was no exception.
And if our athletics tradition has any regeneration point then it is the Irish Schools' Athletics championships. Recall any great Irish champion and the trail can be traced to here. Without doubt future champions have now started on the same trail.
Not all might be complete standouts, or a class above, but some certainly were. Like 18-year-old Ciarán O'Connell from Monaghan, who has drawn attention back to the middle-distance events after a few years where the sprints and field events stole the spotlight.
O'Connell will most likely concentrate on the 800 metres, the race he dominated here to win in one minute 51.26 seconds. That event always requires pure speed, so as if to prove his intentions he came back less than two hours later and won the 400 metres in 49.01. It was a double of absolute brilliance.
In both races the margin of victory could hardly have been more decisive. The only disappointment for the St Macartan's student was that his 800-metre time fell just short of the 21-year-old championship senior record of 1:51.1 - albeit hand-timed - which Seán O'Neill of Ballymena set back in 1982.
Later on, the senior 1,500 metres was far more tactical and caused a major surprise. Colin Costelloe was the pre-race favourite, but Richard Byrne took the entire field by surprise with a thunderous surge from some 250 metres from home and despite the best efforts of Costelloe, he held on for gold in 3:54.92.
For Byrne, who studies at North Monastery in Cork but hails from Kells, Co Meath, the victory was also the stepping stone to the US scholarship route and he soon sets off for St Paul University in Chicago.
The junior boys' 1,500 metres was also a high-class affair, with Dave McCarthy from St Augustine's looking cool and collected when taking gold in 4:20.36.
Coming away with double gold is still the measure of complete schools success, and few are more special than the 800-1,500 combination. That was pulled off in the senior girls by Azmera Gebrezgi, originally from Eritrea and now a student in Dominican, Cabra. Adopting a sit-and-kick policy proved her trump as her finishing speed was clearly the difference in winning the 800 (2:12.38) and the 1,500 (4:43.44).
In the sprint events there was even more gold on the double, led by Aoife McNeill of Our Lady's Grove with success over 100 and 200 metres - the latter in a notable 25.29 seconds. Liz McWilliams has already displayed her excellent potential this season and that was underlined in the junior girls, first over 800 metres, and then over 300 metres.
There were some more unusual doubles. Pamela Hughes of Kings Hospital took the junior girls' 800 metres just a few minutes after winning the high jump, and Kalyn Sheehan of Ursuline, Waterford won the 75-metre hurdles and long jump in the same grade.
Standards in field events were generally a little down on previous years, only four records falling in total. Rachel Akers set a new mark in the senior girls' hammer (51.32). Also setting records, in the walks, were senior Ann Loughnane (13:45.89) and junior Lucia Reynolds (5:32.8), while Erin Kinnear did the inevitable in the senior pole vault, clearing 3.65 metres.
Clearly then, the talent for the future is there. Discovering it is the easy part. Nurturing it now, and not wasting it, is the hard part.
Details in SPORTS ROUND-UP
