Donegal Athletics County Board gather in the Finn Valley Centre on Saturday-week, January 19, to honour the Stars of 2018.
Each club has additionally nominated four athletes that in their opinion contributed most to the club last year in under and over 16 categories.
A large attendance is anticipated for this annual function which has grown in stature in recent years.
The County Board have selected five outstanding performers who will receive the Senior Athletes of the Year, Junior Athletes of the year awards and also the Master athletes of the year.
One male and one female has been chosen in each category. One unusual aspect of this year’s selections is that Finn Valley’s Sommer Lecky, who won a silver medal in the High Jump at the World Junior Championships, and also is National Senior champion in the same event and has won both the Junior and Senior Awards and this is the first time that this has happened. The list of Award winners are as follows.
Senior Men
Brendan Boyce in a season blighted by injury Brendan finished nineteenth in the 50Kms at the European Championships in Berlin and also won both the 20Km and 30Km National titles at home.
Brendan Boyce
Senior and Junior Women
Sommer Lecky has had an exceptional year firstly winning the AAI Senior Indoor high Jump title and then followed up by winning the Scottish Senior title and the AAA Junior title.
She won the IFAM International in Belgium, finished second in the Mannheim Junior International retained her Irish Schools title, took gold at the Belfast International meet and finished tenth in the Commonwealth Games.
Junior Men
James Kelly following in the footsteps of his older brother John won the Irish Schools Shot Putt in a new record.
James Kelly
James won both the AAI Junior indoor and outdoor titles again inn new record distances and also won both the AAI U/19 Indoor and Outdoor titles again in new records. James was also a member of the Celtic Games team.
Master Men
Ciaran Doherty won a bronze medal in the 3,000m Steep
Ciaran Doherty
lechase at the World Championships in Malaga and was a scorer on the winning Irish Masters team at the British and Irish International Cross-Country championships.
Master Women
Noreen Bonner had a great season and was a scorer on the winning Masters Cross- Country team.
Noreen Bonner
She was a scorer on the Irish Team that took silver medals in the Marathon at the World Masters Championships in Malaga.
Hall of Fame
Also on the night Bernie O’Callaghan will be inducted into the Donegal Athletics Hall of Fame.
Bernie O’Callaghan
Bernie won seven Irish Senior titles and six Irish Senior team medals and set six national Records all in the Race Walking discipline. He spent twenty eight years as National Race Walking Coach . Previous inductees into the Hall of Fame have been Glenswilly’s Cyril O’Boyle, Milford’s Hugo Duggan and Glenswilly’s Danny Mc Daid. Killybegs native Bernie who is a member of Finn Valley will become the fourth inductee having previously been inducted into the Ulster Athletics Hall of Fame in 2009.
Tickets for the event are €15 each and can be purchased from any member of the committee.
