Gregan and Travers land gold in Indoor C’ships

BRIAN Gregan from Tallaght and Drimnagh man John Travers were among the winners at last weekend’s Irish Life Health National Indoor Championships at the Sport Ireland National Indoor Arena.

The former twice ran under the European Indoor standard on his way to the Men’s 400m title, while Travers produced a great tactical run to pip Paul Robinson for the Men’s 1500m crown.

Gregan will be well pleased with his per-formance given the fact that he was up against very strong opposition that included his new Clonliffe Harriers clubmate Luke Lennon-Ford and had been seriously hindered in his preparation by an untimely illness.

“I was away in Tenerife training and I was in brilliant shape, but then I picked up some type of a bug and I hadn’t trained since my first race of the year at the end of January” explained the Belgard athlete.

“I was feeling so run-down and I was just doing the bare minimum. I did one run on the Tuesday before I raced on Saturday, but as I got closer to the Nationals I felt more of a pop in my step.

“The forced rest probably proved a blessing in disguise, but you don’t feel that at the time.

“There was a freshness in my legs and when I did the European qualifying time in my heat I knew I could do well here,” he told The Echo.

The win leaves him on a sound footing ahead of the European Indoor Champ-ionships in Belgrade from March 3-5.

Also pushing strongly to represent Ireland in 400m competition in the future will be his closest National Championship challenger Lennon-Ford who recently transferred his national allegiance to Ireland from Great Britain.

With his mother hailing from Tallaght and his grandfather from Sligo, he has strong ties to this country and managed to transfer his allegiance before the IAAF ruled to place a moratorium on such moves.

Meanwhile, in what was one of the most exciting finishes of the champion-ships, Travers produced a late surge to clinch the 1500m title from Robinson.

The Donore Harriers man crossed the line first in 3:50.44 with the St Coca’s athlete next in 3:50.55.

“My coach Jerry [Kiernan] told me to leave it to as late as possible, because we know how strong of a finisher Paul is” said Travers.

“It was great, because there was no real sudden injection of pace in the race. It was just a steady increase in the speed and it burned everyone off except myself and Paul.

“It was great because I had never beaten Paul up until last Wednesday at the AIT Grand Prix.

“Now he [Robinson] was only coming back so he might have been a bit rusty, but Paul on an off-day is still a very strong athlete and it was great to beat him.

“I much prefer to lead from the front. I like to run hard and fast and it’s only in the last few years that I’ve adapted to champion-ship running and it looks to be paying off,” he added.

In the Women’s 400m, DSD athlete Sinead Denny (53.74) finished runner-up to Bandon’s Phil Healy (53.49), with both athletes making it home under the European Indoor standard.

Denny’s clubmate Grace O’Rourke cleared a height of 1.70m to emerge third from the Women’s High Jump while Tallaght athlete Eoin Doherty clocked 6.81 seconds on his way to second place in the Men’s 60m behind Leon Reid of Menapians.

Another of the Donore Harriers contingent Lynda Ngankam cleared 11.27m for the runner-up spot in the Women’s Triple Jump while Nadia Power of Templeogue was third in the Women’s 1500m.