Silver for rising star Mageean

ATHLETICS:CIARA MAGEEAN underlined her star potential in winning the silver medal over 800 metres at the IAAF World Youth Championships in Bressanone, Italy, yesterday.

The 17-year-old Mageean, who lives in the Ards Peninsula, ran a superb race to finish second to Cherono Koech of Kenya – with the added satisfaction of smashing her own Irish junior record for the distance, clocking two minutes 3.07 seconds, one of the fastest times by an Irish woman of any age, and seventh on the Irish all-time list.

This was more than two seconds inside the previous record she set of 2:05.38 which she ran when winning the Irish Schools’ title in Tullamore on May 30th in the colours of Assumption College of Ballynahinch, Co Down.

That time by Mageean smashed the previous junior record which had stood to the credit of one Sonia O’Sullivan that she ran in Scotland in 1987.

In winning the title yesterday Koech not alone ran a personal best but set a championship record with a highly-impressive 2:01.67, top-class running for a girl of such tender years while Rowena Cole of Britain took the bronze in 2:03.83, a personal best too, after Tizita Bogale of Ethiopia set a very fast pace, going through 400 metres in 59.55.

Ireland’s only other medal in these championships came from Ann Loughnane of Galway in the 5,000 metres walk when she also won a silver back in 2003.

Now Mageean is expected to take a short break before targeting other major events, like the European juniors and the European Youth Olympics and we can expect further medals from the burgeoning athletics career of this exciting young woman who only turned 17 last March.

World Youth Championships: Women’s 800m Final: 1, C Koech (Kenya) 2:01.67 (Champ Rec). 2, C Mageean (Ireland) 2:03.07 (Irish junior rec). 3, R Cole (Britain) 2:03.83. 4, R M Almanza (Cuba) 2:04.31.