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Sporting Diary - 5th September E-mail
Written by Ralph O'Gorman   
Wednesday, 05 September 2007
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Sporting Diary - 5th September
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All the rest of the weeks sporting action in brief.

Alan Martin and Cormac Folan are on their way to the Olympic Games in Beijing next year. They qualified in the Irish Heavyweight Four boat when finishing tenth in the world at the World Championships in Munich on Saturday. We salute the two NUIG oarsmen who compete at the very top in the world in one of the toughest sporting disciplines. An interesting point is that what qualified is the Irish Four boat, so technically the Irish boat could have a complete new crew come Beijing 2008, but the word is that the work ethic of Alan Martin and Cormac Folan is such that there is not a hope in hell that they will let their places in the boat slip.

Paul Hession, the Athenry Flyer, is going to the Olympics as well. He did himself, Galway and Ireland proud at the World Championships in Osaka. Now a world class athlete and Irish champion and record holder at 60 metres, 100 metres and 200 metres, not bad for one year.
The Diary continues to get a kick out of our feature on the brothers that played rugby for Connacht. We have accounted for 37 sets of brothers when the Samoan pair of Ray Ofisa and Ofisa Treviranus joined the ranks when the latter, an impressive winger, played against South Africa. But we had a very special day yesterday week for the Muldoons of Portumna. Firstly John Muldoon was named captain for the first game against Castres and the brother Conor Muldoon came on as a substitute thus becoming the 38th set of brothers to play for Connacht. Congratulations.
The tide was right, but precious little else was, for the concluding session of The Corrib Water Polo Summer Swim Series on Friday night. The air was nippy and the sea was choppy. It was a dull ould evening but the participants were anything but! There was an evident camaraderie among them and they entered the water all together at Blackrock and walloped their way down the Prom at the rate of knots. They made quite a splash! oh dear! Darragh Heskin won the Mens race in 23.09 with Lorcan Quaid and Kevin O’Byrne in after him. Eileen Kilkenny won the Ladies in 24.30 ahead of Fiona Donovan and Clodagh Cunningham. Not for the first time Adam Caulfield and Kate Coyle posted the fastest times with 19.55 and 17.02 respectively. But so much of Friday night was about the winning of the series and the two winners emerged in fine fashion. Kevin O’Byrne and Trish O’Sullivan held on to their leads going into the event to emerge as the series winners for 2007. Nice one, well done. Kevin O’Byrne chose Friday night to swim his fastest of the series in 21.12 to seal overall victory. Trish O’Sullivan saw off the challenge of Fiona O’Donovan and Kate Coyle to take the honours. The role of honour now reads Sam Knight & Kate O’Brien, Daragh Waters & Lily O’Brien, Alan Quaid/Shane Heskin & Clodagh Cunningham, Paddy McNamara & Cathy Higgins, Martin McCarthy & Trish O’Sullivan, Adam Caulfield & Fiona Donovan, Mike Langan & Trish O’Sullivan, Adrian Clarke & Trish O’Sullivan, Shane Heskin & Miriam Wall and Darragh Heskin & Eileen Kilkenny.

The Final Men’s standings are as follows, 1. Kevin O’Byrne (50.75), 2. Paul Naughton (55.75), 3. Brian McGlynn (64.5), 4. Alan Quaid (68), 5. Dara Flores (69.5), 6. Shane Heskin (70), 7. Eamon Caulfield (77.75), 8. Ricky Byrne (84), 9. Brian Clancy (87), 10. Andy Flanagan (96.5).

The Final Ladies standings are 1. Trish O’Sullivan (20.5), 2. Fiona Donovan (21.25), 3. Kate Coyle (24.5), 4. Lily O’Brien (25), 5. Eileen Kilkenny (45.4), 6. Michelle Power (46.75), 7. Clodagh Cunningham (47.75), 8. Miriam Wall (52.75), Jt.9. Maura Brennan (67.75) & Catherine Walsh (67.75).

The overall winners of the series down through the years, sponsored by Barry Heskin, are;

1994: George Flores
1995: Pat Quinlan
1996: Ricky Byrne
1997: Gearóid Mitchell
1998: John Gill
1999: Shane Heskin
2000: Eamon Caulfield
2001: Tom Ashton
2002: Alan Quaid
2003: Neil Reddin
2004: Ricky Byrne
2005: Adam Caulfield
2006: John Gill
2007: Kevin O’Byrne


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