McGlynn double act top the podium

STRABANE’S McGlynn family were again in title winning form over the weekend as husband and wife, Trevor and Ann-Marie, claimed victory in different events.

Despite nursing an achillies injury, Trevor won a gold medal at the All-Ireland Masters Indoor Championships in Athlone, while Ann-Marie claimed the ladies title at the Derry 10 Miler on Saturday.

Ann-Marie, who is training for the Rotterdam Marathon in April where she hopes to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics, was in a field of her own on a wet afternoon along the banks of the Foyle.

She only decided to enter the Derry 10 miler rather than go for a training run over the same distance. In the end it proved a worthwhile exercise as she won the ladies race and finished 13th overall after running the first five miles at an easy pace before going into Marathon pace for the final five, finishing in 57.15 minutes.

In Athlone, meanwhile, there was plenty of local success. Aghyaran’s Mark Connolly, representing Foyle Valley AC, won bronze in the over-50s, 1500 metres; Trevor, representing Omagh Harriers, won silver in the O40 long jump and gold in the high jump; Harrier Orlagh Colton won gold in the long jump with a personal best of 4.08m, silver in the hurdles and was fourth in the 60m, recording PBS in both; Fabian McAleer claimed bronze in the long jump, 30 years after winning his only other All-Ireland athletics medal as a teenager; Catherine McDevitt, from Letterkenny, who trains with McGlynn, won 400m gold with a PB, and 200m gold too, while another of McGlynn’s proteges, Tina Gallagher, earned five All-Ireland medals and multiple PBs.

While delighted to have been involved in plenty of those success stories, McGlynn’s own achievements came at some cost.

“My jumping achillies, which I hurt a couple of weeks ago, wasn’t 100 per cent, so I was putting more pressure on my other leg and I ended up hurting my other leg because of that,” he explained.