For 29 years, seven months and 11 days Kieran Finn’s name was engraved on this club’s record books as 100 metre record holder.
Four months earlier, a band whose career had begun just a few square miles away from the Morton stadium, where Finn had posted that record, had released an album that would see them one day conquer the music world.
As dawn broke in Dublin on May 27 2017 and the members of Raheny Shamrock Athletic Club began their daily “running to stand still” routine.
“A Bullet (in) the (Belgian) Blue Sky” had fired as 18-year-old Mark Smyth rewrote a record that shone for nearly 30 years.
Ordegom might be “Where The Streets Have No Name” for many of us, however the IFAM meet was “In God’s Country” for Irish Athletes.
10.71 seconds! It stood for nearly 30 years, 10.71 Seconds!
By lunch time in Dublin on May 27 the record books had been rewritten, for in heat four of the 100 metres on the pre-programme of IFAM meet, Mark Smyth had ran 10.70 seconds.
While records are set to be broken and Mark Smyth broke the fourth oldest track record on Saturday morning while also running the European Under 20 Championship B standard qualifying time in the process.
The summer is very much just beginning for this young man, and no doubt by the time winter training begins, Smyth will have found what he is looking for.
Smyths race was the beginning of good news for the Raheny crew throughout the day at home and abroad. At the same meet in Belgium, Aisling Droomgoole posted 55.34 seconds for 400 metres.
While Eoin Strutt added another victory to his mantel piece this time the 1500 metres of the Bertie Quinn Memorial in Tullamore, part of the Irish Milers Club meet’s, winning out in 3:57.34.
Daniel Scully finished fifth in the same race in 4:01.86, another whose performance flew in a famous old stadium.
Does someone want to tell this crew it’s not yet June?
Yet by summers end, their Joshua Tree’s will be in full bloom!
