SportsShoes Blog

we started off 9th seeds and in our group we had poland, czech rep, hungary and gibraltar. we topped the group relativly comfortable and drew spain in the playoffs.
 
losing the opening ties 3-0 and 3-2 but winning the next 3-0 it came down to my match and id to win 3-1 at worst. had a slow start losing the 1st 11-1 but snook the 2nd in a tiebreak which gave me the momentum and won the next 2 11-3 11-4..
 
we played Scotland next, which was a really tight match again. We lost the opening matches 3-0 and 3-1 but securing the next 2 ties 3-1 and I won 3-0. With the match tied on matches and sets it went down to points and we lost by 3!
 
In the final match we played Finland and again it went on points countback but this time we managed to win by 8 points.
 
7th overall which wasn’t bad but we were aiming for 5th. The main thing though was to secure a place in the top 8 for next years event. Personally it went quite well as i won 7 matches out of 7 and a stretch of 11 unbeaten matches wearing the irish shirt..

Well here goes, my first ever blog entry!

I’m sat in yet another hotel room in Cardiff getting ready to compete tomorrow night in the Super 8 meeting. I’ve just returned back from Poland where I competed in the 1500m at the 55th Janusz Kusocinski Memorial meeting and ran a lifetime best of 4.05.06 , the World Champs A Qualifying time! Woo Hoo, I knocked nearly 3 secs off! What a relief. Feels great to have the qualifying time in the bag and all I need to concentrate on now is getting in that top 3 at the trials in July and I’m on the plane to Berlin!

I was in the SportsShoes shop just before I left for Poland and purchased the Skins half shorts and I love them! Felt great to race in! I also got a new pair of the Saucony Triumphs, which I also love! The cushioing is just the best. I raced in the Saucony Endorphin MD spikes and they are fast! Really get you up on your toes and also have great cushioning.

Ok, well I’ll be on again soon to let you know how I go in the Super 8 meet. Look out for me on Sky Sports 2 Friday night showing the highlights! I’m the one who will hopefully be winning with the big curly hair!

Charlene x

just played the Irish Open last week. One of the greatest events (tad biased!) which attracted a very strong field with former world numer 1 and current number 6 Tiery Lincou. In the last 16 I played mo el shorbaggy of Egypt and world number 17. I lost the 1st but played  strong second and at 8 all in the third i’d let it slip and he sneaked it. A little bit of frustration creeped in and a bad start in the 4th gave him the lead he needed to win the 4th 11-8. I played well in patches just needed to be a bit more patient at times bt its a good step in the right direction and proves the hard work is showing.

next up the europeans in malmo. our group (Ireland) is czech, poland, hundary and gibraltar.