Offaly athlete runs qualifying time for European Championships

A BALLYCOMMON athlete has ran the qualifying standard for the 3,000 metres steeplechase in the European U-23 Athletics Championships later this summer.

James Dunne travelled to Oregon at the weekend with the Adams State track squad to compete in the Portland Twilight Meet. The former Tullamore Harriers member is on an athletics scholarship at Adams State University.

Dunne got right on pace from the starters gun and even with the four jumps and one water jump each lap was able to keep the pace steady at 71/72 seconds. In the final lap James opened up and closed in 66s for a new PB of 8:57.46., four seconds faster than the time he ran in California a month ago.

This is also a new Tullamore Harriers club record and moves James into the top 50 on the Irish Seniors all time list of performances. The time is also comfortably inside the qualifying standard standard of 9:00 set by European Athletics for the European U23 Championships, which take place in Epsoo, Finland this July.

James joins Ava O’Connor in running a qualifying standard for this event and a few more of Tullamore’s athletes will attempt to qualify in the coming weeks. O'Connor, from Emo in Laois, also graduated from the Tullamore Harriers juvenile section, winning a scholarship to Adams State.

In recent years Tullamore Harriers has had major success in qualifying athletes for European Championships with the following athletes qualifying to compete at that level- Danielle Donegan (European Cross Country 2019, 2021 and 2022), Ava O’Connor (European U20 T & F 2021), Laura Mooney (European U20 T & F 2021 and European Cross Country 2021 and 2022), Liam Brady (European Cross Country 2019) and Mark Milner (European U20 T & F 2019 and European U23  T & F 2021).