Abdel finishes in second spot to emerge a force in Irish athletics

ABDEL Laadjel continues to emerge as a force in Irish athletics.

The 19-years-old Donore Harriers star finished second in the 10,000m at the Big East Outdoor Track & Field Championships at the Villanova University Track in Pennsylvania last week.

It wasn’t just the time, but the manner of how he ran the race that impressed.

The Providence College student tracked pre-race favourite Barry Keane from Butler University through the opening 5,000m with the pair reaching the half-way mark in just outside 15 minutes.

At that point the Irish duo held 4th and 5th positions with David McGlynn, another Irishman, holding the lead.

Laadjel briefly held the lead past the 5k mark, but it was Keane who pushed the pace and held pole position in the closing laps.

Only Laadjel gave chase as McGlynn fell behind and had to settle for 3rd spot in 29.34.00.

With a thousand metres remaining Keane again pushed the pace with laps of 65 and 64 seconds to open a gap of five seconds on the Providence Friars athlete.

However, Laadjel closed with a 64-second final lap to bridge the gap to just two seconds.

Keane clocked 29.10.62 and Laadjel 29.12.50, thus slicing 11 seconds of his personal best set last year.

The second half of the race was run in an impressive 14.10, with Abdel’s final race time well inside the qualifying standard (29.40) for the European Under 23 Championships to be held in Finland in July.

Elsewhere, Louis O’Loughlin narrowly failed to qualify for the final of the 800m in the South-Eastern Conference Outdoor Track & Field Championships at Baton Rouge.

Louisiana – also on Thursday.

Running in the first of 5 qualifying heats the Auburn State University student held 4th place at the bell reached in 53.15.

A final lap of 56.14 saw him gain to 3rd place and close in a time of 1.49.29.

Once the five qualifying races were done and dusted O’Loughlin was ranked 10th of 36 competitors, but his time was just one-tenth of a second short of 9th spot and a place in the final.

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