Local young athletes produced some excellent performances at a cool and at times damp Antrim Forum on Saturday as the best meeting of the local track and field season, the Ulster schools finals, took place.

The mini (U13) 800m races saw double bronze for two young competitors who had already medalled at the Ulster Cross Country back in February.

Abagail Boyd (Mount Lourdes) took bronze in the girls event in 2.33.48 and just five minutes later St Michael’s Frank Buchanan did the same in the boys event, his time of 2.23.49 meaning that he had knocked a remarkable nine seconds off the 11 year old school record in just eight days.

However Frank could not get ahead of another local athlete, who took the only Fermanagh gold of the day back to St Kevin’s College, the highly talented Ben Warnock taking the Ulster title in 2.21.

Mount Lourdes high jumpers were in good form, with Mairead Smyth taking silver in the minor girls, while Riona Doris finished fourth in the mini age group.

There were medals too for the very promising Alex Nikolov of St Michael’s in the mini Long Jump with 4.37m with Nikolov also making the 100m final, and for Ava McNally in the junior girls walk, the Clones AC and Mount Lourdes athlete clocking 6.49.

Other excellent local performances came from Edeline Andrich of Enniskillen Royal who was fourth in the junior girls Shot Putt and the 800m duo of Cain Fitzpatrick (St Michael’s) and Grainne Dully (Mount Lourdes) both of whom finished fifth in their respective junior races.

The St Michael’s mini 4 x 100m relay team, featuring no fewer than three Ulster cross country gold medallists, were the only local relay team to make a final on Saturday.

Hopefully these talented youngsters will get the athletics infrastructure their talents deserve and which they and others need to develop, infrastructure which is readily available in every other county in Ulster.

If this happens, and happens soon, we might see more national and international medal winners in Track & Field again to match the group of young athletes from Fermanagh who dominated Ulster and Irish sprinting and jumping just a decade ago.