The National Juvenile Track and Field Championships took place in Tullamore in July. It is the highlight of the Athletics Calendar, and this year LSA had two athletes competing. Éabha O’Farrell competed in U16 girls’ 3kg Hammer and Anna Gavigan competed in U19 Girls’ Discus. Both had qualified for this event by winning their respective competitions in the Dublin Championships in May and June.This was Anna’s final competition as a “Juvenile” and she signed off in style by winning the Discus Championships with a throw of 45.95m and setting a new U19 Championship record!This was Anna’s third major Championship win this summer. At the start of June, Anna won theSenior Girls’ Discus in the All-Ireland Schools Championship representing Loreto Secondary School Balbriggan. Three weeks later she had her best success to date winning the 150thNational Senior Track and Field Championships.Anna is a great example of the Long Term Athlete Development policy. She has been training and competing with LSA since 2014 but it was only in 2018 that she began to win medals in the Dublin Championships and qualify for national finals. Later that year she started to train with coach Gerry Ronan, and has gone from strength to strength since then.Our younger Juveniles may well be inspired by being coached by a National Champion – Anna is part of the coaching team with Fiona’s group at our Thursday evening training session, and she also coached at our recent summer camp.Meanwhile, Éabha is another up and coming LSA Juvenile Athlete, also coached by Gerry Ronan. Éabha set a new LSA club record for 3kg hammer when she threw 36.80m to finish 5th in the National Juvenile Championships. LSA Juvenile training will recommence in September – watch out for details on Social Media.We always welcome new volunteers to help out with our growing club.For memberships queries or to get involved please do so on our gmail account on lambaysportsathletics@gmail.com. Keep up to date on all the events by following LSA via our social media pages! Or facebook.com/lambaysportsacademy or even Instagram instagram.com/lsadonabateportrane/ Twitter twitter.com/LSARunning. For additional information on the above please visit our website lambaysportsathletics.ie/

We recently hosted a fantastic week at Glebe North FAI summer camp with 110 kids enjoying football while learning new skills. Big thanks to all coaches involved, Megan, Denis, Sean, Eoin, Lee, Michael, Alan and Emma. Glebe north will host another camp in August, 15th to 19th. Only 30 places remaining, book online at bookings.summersoccerschools.ie/s/

St. Mary’s Baton Twirlers who train weekly and have athletes from Balbriggan, Skerries, Bellewstown and Drogheda and they recently took to the competition floor after an absence of 28 months. Indoor sports suffered greatly due to not being able to train during the pandemic, but the club are working on rebuilding the squad. It was a young squad who entered the ABTI Championships in Crumlin at the end of June 2022 and they took home many of the top awards. Baton twirling is often seen as a sport for girls but across Europe, USA and Japan its equally popular with boys and girls, and for the first time in over 35 years, we had boys from St. Mary’s Baton Twirlers perform. Luke McKnight and Zach Bergin won the under 10 pairs competition. It would be great to see as many boys as girls at the club in the future. Plans for 2023 are in the final stages which will include ABTI National Championships and travelling to International Championships.For more information about St. Mary’s Baton Twirlers contact them on : 086 3270636, or DM them at: @stmarys.batontwirlers

Junsa has been busy training and educating our students it the art of our great martial art and sport. We recently had a number of our older students take part in a corner judges and referees course and then they had the opportunity to test there new skills at an upcoming tournament. The opportunities in Taekwondo are endless, if our students want to further their Taekwondo career they are not limited to just sparring, they can take part in poomsae tournaments, or international refereeing to name just a few.Below is a few photos of what our junior students have doing this month. We are also looking forward to taking part the first Lusk festival. Junsa Taekwondo now has two training venues: 5-7 year olds Lusk scout Den - 8-12s Curduff national school - 12s and above Curduff national school. Please contact master Stuart Russell for more information on 087 7775202 or follow us on Facebook @ Junsa Taekwondo

It has been a remarkably busy and successful time for Lusk Athletic Club over the past month with athletes of all ages competing in the Dublin Juvenile Championships at the Morton stadium in Santry and Junior, Senior and master’s athletes competing in the Leinster championships at the magnificent IT Carlow stadium. Lusk AC members also took part in a wide range of road races, parkruns and a trail run in Ardgillan demesne. We had 54 athletes from the club take part in our neighbour’s race, the LSA 4 mile. Well done to all our athletes who ran, threw, jumped, those who won medals, Many thanks to our fantastic coaches, officials, parents and volunteers.

This week’s instalment comes from the Irish Daily Independent dated 20th July 1894. Fins travelled to Rush to play local team Emerald Isles.At this time a goal was equivalent to 5 points hence the line “…winners by 2 goals and 10 points (equal to 4 goals)…” It is interesting how the rules evolve through time. At this time Gaelic football was played 17-a-side and the goals were similar to soccer goals. There were also two outer posts. A point was awarded if the ball went over the goal or within the external posts. Similar to Australian Football today.

Congratulations to Mark Girvin who was presented with his Nidan Diploma 2nd Dan Black Belt recently. Mark is a founding member of Swords Karate Club and has trained regularly since he joined back in 2001. For his Nidan examination Mark had to demonstrate a range of Kumite techniques as well as performing several Kata. He had several Kumite fights against opponents where he put his nidan techniques to good use. He was presented with his Diploma by Dermot O Keeffe Sensei 6th Dan JKS, Chief Instructor of JKS Karate in Ireland. We surprised Sensei Ali at the Spring Seminar with a birthday cake and a rendition of Happy Birthday to celebrate her 21st Birthday which was on the same day. She was shocked but delighted at the surprise and promised not to eat all her cake herself! Sensei Ali teaches our Tigers classes. We welcomed Makita Sensei 6th Dan JKS from Japan for day 1 of our Spring Seminar. Over 70 people from all over Ireland took part as Makita Sensei led the students through several rounds of Japanese style training. He demonstrated dynamic contraction and expansion in techniques followed by teaching of Kashu Kata. The seminar was held in Applewood Community Centre. We hosted Jesper Sensei, 7th Dan JKS on day 2 of our Spring Seminar. He spent his time teaching the intricacies of Kaishu Ippon Kumite with a partner and all the students enjoyed his teaching immensely. Class reports: Tigers and Juniors are preparing for the upcoming JKS Inter-Club Competition as well as for grading examinations. The Competition is being hosted by JKS Swords and gives students an opportunity to demonstrate what they have learned in class in a supportive competition environment. Seniors continue to work on developing real world skills from karate techniques. We take new members (Children, Young People & Adults) all through the year. Contact Dermot on 087-98073885 for details on how to join.Contact us on Facebook: JKS Swords Karate Club or on Instagram: @jks_swords_karate_club

The Mini All Ireland Football tournament is a regular annual feature on the schedule of events at St Donabate. In June 2019 a hurling version of the tournament was introduced. Covid restrictions meant that the inaugural tournament was unable to run in the years after its first launch. Three years since the first event, and with massive development of hurling in the club including a developing camogie section, meant the revival of the Mini All Ireland Hurling and Camogie tournament for 2022 was sure to be a success. Almost 300 kids from Academy age group all the way up to Senior age (U14/U13) entered to compete for the coveted Cup winner’s trophy. With the football tournament launching separate boys and girls sections, the hurling event sought to do the same. With camogie in its infancy in the club, the U11 girls its inaugural team, it is a testament to the rapid development of the sport that well over 100 girls applied to compete in the camogie section across a number of age groups. Despite changeable weather conditions during the week of the tournament, which was held leading up to the June bank holiday weekend, the best of the weather held out to allow all the games to proceed with great support on the side lines as parents and supporters cheered on their temporary county allegiances. The quality of the games meant there were some really exciting group stage games and penalty shoot outs were required in many sections to determine placings for finals day. The sun shone bright on Friday’s finals evening as the competition came to a close. There was a great atmosphere around the grounds as both the cup and shield finals took place after which winners were crowned and goodie bags devoured by all.

LSA Juvenile training has ended for the summer break. If you are interested in signing up your child born in 2015 or older, please contact Heather on lambaysportsathletics@gmail.com Thanks to all our coaches and volunteers during the year and see you all in the Autumn. We have a 3 day summer camp on 19th, 20th and 21st July, check it out at lambaysportsathletics.clubzap.com/pages/summer-camp-2022.Our Adult section continues all year around catering for all abilities from absolute beginner to advanced marathon runners and track and field competition. For more details check out our webpage on lambaysportsathletics.ie.

Some of our younger members put on a sparkling display in the glorious sunshine in Balscadden recently at the tractor run , which was wonderful as it was back to the roots where St. Marys Baton Twirlers began some 43 years ago.The present boys and girls are looking forward to competing in the 2022 ABTI National Championships at the end of June. For further information on classes contact us on Facebook messenger @StMarys Baton Twirlers or 086 3270636.