Abdel reaches 10,000m final at European C’ships

The U23 European Championships have concluded after being held in Bergen, Norway last weekend with a number of local athletes taking part.

Abdel Laadjel of Donore Harriers reached the final of the men’s 10,000 metres and managed to finish in eighth place with a time of 29:14.68.

Laadjel started the race conservatively before actually taking the lead with just over three laps left to run. Unfortunately the legs were lacking in staying power and Laadjel would find himself slipping down the positions throughout the last lap before winding up in eight position with 200m left to go in the race.

A student at the University of Oregon Laadjel touched on his own performance in the race.

“Probably made a few mistakes at the start and was probably too far back, but towards the end I did what I planned to do coming in. There was probably not much I could have given more,” Laadjel said.

“I’ll probably take a break now. It’s been a lot this year, a lot of change. A lot of change in training,” he added.

Elsewhere, Lucan Harriers also had an athlete participating with national champion Kate O’Connell representing Ireland in the women’s 4×400 metre relay.

The team consisted of O’Connell along with Victoria Amiadamen, Emma Moore and Jenna Breen and actually set a new U23 national record with a time of  3:34.81, taking 0.06 seconds off the time set in 2017 with that 2017 squad consisting of names such as Olympian Sophie Becker and Cliodhna Manning.

Speaking of the accomplishment O’Connell said, “It was definitely a goal we had coming in [breaking the national record], it was close so delighted to get that. The team that had it before was a good team so it’s good to better that.

Unfortunately the team would not qualify for the finals of the event after finishing sixth in their heat, despite breaking the national record going to show the standard that was on display at the U23 European Championships this year.

Tallaght AC athlete Sean Aigboboh was unable to compete in the mens 100m Semi Final after being forced to pull out due to a medical issue.

Aigboboh had finished comfortably in third place in his qualifying heat with a time of 10.58, he had spoken previously of comfortably hitting a 10.40 time consistently throughout training and if he had managed to reach the final such a time would have placed him within the top five overall in the competition.

He would also be unable to take part in the mens 4x100m relay race.

The men would go on to finish fifth in the relay, posting that second fastest time ever by an Irish athletics U23 team but ultimately the fifth place finish in their heat was not enough to secure them entry to the next stage of the competition.