by Neil McCalister
The Brian Downing Memorial International Meet in Antrim lived up to the hype with Olympic athletes taking the limelight. Athletes from Oman, Djibouti, Egypt and Qatar who are here for an Olympic Games Pre Training Camp impressed the crowd and gave 3 Newcastle athletes the unique opportunity to witness their pre race preparations and to compete against some of the best athletes in the world.
The highlight of the night was London bound Djiboutian athlete Ayanteh Soulieman running the fastest time ever on the Antrim track with a Stadium record of 1.47.45 as he stormed home ahead of training partner Hamada Mohamed of Egypt in 1.47.97. The crowd were on their feet cheering on the two athletes as they went through the first lap in a fast 52.73 seconds.
Newcastle junior athlete Patrick Sheridan (Pictured) was an interested spectator as Ayanteh Soulieman wowed the crowd as Patrick had earlier recorded a very good time of 2.17 in the under 17 mens 800m, just 13 secs behind the winner.
Soulieman doubled up and an hour later and ran in the 3000m opening up a clear margin from the second lap. Soulieman who is a 2012 World Indoor finalist however showed his class by firing ahead and taking the title easily in 8.17.28. Liam Tremble (Irish Universities) was a distant second in 8.44.27 and Newcastles Eoghan Totten (Pictured) finished an impressive 5th in a time of 9.01.
In the 100m and 400m Newcastle AC‘s Neil McAllister was given a sprinting lesson by Barakat Al-Harthi from Oman although Neil explained that he had intentional hung back in both races to provide extra security for the Olympic Athlete as a number of G4S security guards had failed (allegedly) to show up for the event.
In the field events Luis Rivera of Mexico, also heading to the Olympics, won the Long Jump in 7.51m but Irish Champion Adam McMullen was within 3cms leaping 7.47m. Ciaran Dolan of Finn Valley set a new PB with a jump of 7.00m.
In conclusion, all 3 Newcastle AC athletes thoroughly enjoyed the international element of the event on their doorstep and from a Club perspective it was good to see 3 athletes participating in a Track & Field meeting and hopefully the Club can build on this momentum. Indeed rumour has it that a club legend is on the verge of coming out of his Track & Field retirement and is currently in training for next years season. This will be a significant boost for the Clubs Track & Field Team as the person in question (I don’t want to name him yet but he is a teacher and the initials PR are significant) was once a gifted 1500m runner, at least that’s what his brother told me.