National Athletics Awards

dna_leri

AAI have announced nominees for the National Athletics Awards as follows:

Track and Field Athlete of the Year:
Brian Gregan
Mark English
Paul Robinson
Roseanne Galligan

Endurance Athlete of the Year:
Paul Pollock
Lizzie Lee
Fionnuala Britton
Mary Cullen

Track and Field Indoor Athlete:
Derval O’Rourke
Fionnuala Britton
Ciaran O’Lionaird

Race Walker of the Year:
Brendan Boyce
Laura Reynolds
Rob Heffernan
Luke Hickey

Junior Athlete of the Year:
Marcus Lawler
Sarah Lavin
Phil Healy
Aislinn Crossey

Probably the obvious winners would be:
Galligan (national record), Britton (Euro XC), O'Rourke (for consistency in the face of adversity!), Heffernan (World Champ) & Lavin (Euro Jr Silver), with Rob Heffernan easily getting the overall award.

Any arguments?

Interesting that Rob is the only obvious male winner. Are we losing more male talent to other sports?

Pherekydes

Should we not have awards for male and female in those categories?

If you compare Galligan with English, how can you say Galligan was superior?

dna_leri

Pherekydes wrote: »

Should we not have awards for male and female in those categories?

If you compare Galligan with English, how can you say Galligan was superior?

Galligan broke the record, English missed it (by a small margin). Would not be surprised if English gets it, to balance out the genders.

Chivito550

How on earth is Rob not in the Endurance Athlete of the Year nominations? :eek:

Chivito550

dna_leri wrote: »

Galligan broke the record, English missed it (by a small margin). Would not be surprised if English gets it, to balance out the genders.

The women's 800 record was much softer than the men's though.

Chivito550

Bit of chat about the awards here:

http://jumpingthegun.ie/blog/2013/10/31/halloween-talk-dublin-drugs-awards-and-more

dna_leri

Chivito550 wrote: »

The women's 800 record was much softer than the men's though.

Maybe soft in international terms but it still stood for 19 years, so in Irish terms it was one of the oldest records.

Chivito550

dna_leri wrote: »

Maybe soft in international terms but it still stood for 19 years, so in Irish terms it was one of the oldest records.

Sonia herself said it was very soft and that it should not have taken 19 years for it to be beaten.

pconn062

English's run to me, was the better performance. However I can see the merit of both nominations. As DL says, English might get it to balance out the genders.

thirstywork2

Paul Robinson wins the Track and Field athlete by a mile for me.
Sub 1.46 800m,2.18 for 1000m and a win beating some serious runners like Andrew Wheating.
3.35.22 1500m jumping ahead of Coghlan,Bruton,Nolan ect.

maybe you can argue his run in worlds wasn't great but 800m isn't his event.
Watch out for him if he decides to run the cross country champs.
Now number 6 in both 800m and 1500m on the all time Irish list.
RAG record in the 800m was a soft record but it's still a national record and the womens 800m event has improved so much with Ciara Everard and Laura Crowe.

YFlyer

Chivito550 wrote: »

How on earth is Rob not in the Endurance Athlete of the Year nominations? :eek:

He would walk it.

ecoli

thirstywork2 wrote: »

Paul Robinson wins the Track and Field athlete by a mile for me.
Sub 1.46 800m,2.18 for 1000m and a win beating some serious runners like Andrew Wheating.
3.35.22 1500m jumping ahead of Coghlan,Bruton,Nolan ect.

maybe you can argue his run in worlds wasn't great but 800m isn't his event.
Watch out for him if he decides to run the cross country champs.
Now number 6 in both 800m and 1500m on the all time Irish list.

Was having the same discussion myself only last night. Performed to a high standard at u23s. Achieved world standard out of the blue at 800m and ran well in some high class fields (winning San Diego mile beating the likes of Dave Torrence)

Not taking away from English's stellar performaces but Robinson was more consistent all year and performed at his target championship.

Muppet Man

Surprised Gary O'Hanlon aint there considering he won 5(?) marathons this year and a few second places?

Oregano_State

Muppet Man wrote: »

Surprised Gary O'Hanlon aint there considering he won 5(?) marathons this year and a few second places?

Sorry but Gary isn't in the same league as these guys.

Surely O'Lionaird is in with a big shout for the indoor award? According to his recent blog post, he was carrying an injury into Gothenburg. Went for Gold in the final, was just beaten for silver. If he can stay healthy this season I'd expect huge things.