Jackson claims silver medal

The teenager stormed to a brilliant individual silver medal in the Senior girls race and the St Cecelia’s Mini girls squad led by Kayla McLaughlin, finished a close up third in their age group team race.

These were the only local podium finishes at the hotly contested Provincial championships but Amy will be joined at the upcoming All Ireland Schools championships in Cork by the 7th and 10th placed finishers in the Senior Boys race, Lumen’s Michael Melarkey and Matthew Doherty of St Josephs, with Thornhill’s Clodagh Laverty also qualifying via her 12th place finish in the Junior Girls race.

The Senior Girls race was a cracker with the local athlete in contention right to the end, a mere four seconds behind winner Emer Magee of Dominican, Fortwilliam.

Amy arguably turned in her best performance ever at schools level, a tribute to her hard training in recent months with coach Sean Laverty’s group and she looks like an athlete with a big future.

Kayla McLaughlin, Carla McClelland and Nicole McConway were the St Cecelia’s scoring trio and they went very close to grabbing team silver when finishing only one point behind the runners up.

A very good performance indeed by the Creggan school and the other team in action Thornhill, led by Mary Cait Byrne finished sixth.