DCU Athletics claim national Men's and Women's team titles

DCU athletes clinched the Men’s Team Title and claimed the O’Sullivan Cup for the 14th consecutive year, beating University of Limerick by a single point in a dramatic conclusion to the day. 

The DCU Women’s Team claimed the top honours and retained The B.R. Martin Trophy for the 15th consecutive year finishing 98 points of the next closest team. 

DCU also claimed the Overall Team Competition Title (Michael Hillary Cup) for the 14th consecutive year as well as the Combined Events Team Titles (The Millennium Cup), Sprints Trophy, Middle Distance Trophy (The Noel Carroll Cup), Jumps Trophy and Throws Trophy. 

Some of the top standout performances from DCU students across the weekend included:

• DCU’s Men’s 4x100m Relay team (Michael Farrelly, Mark Smyth, Charles Okafor and Paul McDermott) smashed the Irish Universities Record by 0.36 of a second to claim gold running 41.23 seconds.
• There were four further DCU records across the weekend. Matthew Callinan-Keenan broke the DCU record in the Men’s Pole Vault jumping 4.40m to claim the title. Michaela Walsh threw two DCU records in the Women’s Shot Put (14.39m) and Hammer (59.90m) to retain both titles. Zoe Mohan had a fine performance in the Women’s Weight for Distance throwing 8.26m to claim the gold and set a new DCU best for the event. 
• Wexford Athlete, Jack Forde was the busiest DCU athlete across the two days of competition competing in no less than 9 events (110mH, Shot Put, High Jump, Long Jump, Triple Jump, 1500m, Pole Vault, Discus and Weight for Distance) amassing 19 valuable points for the men. First year PE Student, Jennifer Hanrahan, was the busiest of the women’s team scoring valuable points in the 100m, 200m, 4x100m and Long Jump for the Women’s Team.  
• DCU Athletics claimed three of the four relay gold medals on offers across Friday and Saturday. 
• DCU athletes claimed an impressive 41 medals from the championships. 

Head of DCU Athletics Paul Byrne said: 

“It was an incredible two days of action in IT Carlow. It was a pleasure to lead the team to the first Outdoor Track and Field Championship held since the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“The camaraderie, team effort and support made it another amazing championship for DCU with a clean sweep of the team trophies and a huge number of medals, personal bests and season's bests to kick start the Outdoor season. 

“I’m looking forward to what the summer holds for DCU Athletes and Coaches with World Championships, European Championships, World University Games and World Junior Championships all taking place across the next few months and I’m sure we’ll see some DCU athletes qualify and compete at those championships.”