Ireland is celebrating a medal at the World Athletics U20 Championships following javelin thrower Oisin Joyce turning in the performance of his young life to date.
The Lake District AC athlete pulled out a personal best in the opening round of the competition in Peru to finish third and bring home Ireland’s first ever throws medal at these championships.
The 19-year-old improved his own Irish U20 record to 73.89m, a 17cm improvement on his previous best. Joyce was in the silver medal position until the final round when Slovenian athlete Tom Teršek produced a throw of 76.81m to snatch the gold medal from the grasp of China’s Xiaobo Wang.
It is only Ireland’s fifth medal at these championships; all of the previous four have been silvers, Antoine Burke (High Jump/1994), Ciara Mageean (1500m/ 2010), Sommer Lecky (High Jump/ 2018), and women’s 4x100m relay team of Molly Scott, Ciara Neville, Gina Akpe-Moses, Patience Jumbo-Gula and Rhasidat Adeleke, also in 2018.
Joyce is from Ballinrobe, Co Mayo where he is coached by his father Pádraic. He went into the competition only ranked seventh of the competitors. His bronze medal caps a good year for Irish throwers with Tom Williams from Cavan winning the European U18 hammer title and Nicola Tuthill finishing ninth in the European Championships in the same discipline before qualifying for the Olympics.
Action continues in Lima this afternoon with the Irish men in the 4 x 400m heats (12:08) while Donegal athlete Fintan Dewhirst will line up un the semi-finals of the 400m hurdles (16:13).
