Welcome to IrishThrowersClub.com, a site for throwers, by throwers. This site is still under construction so please bear with us as we get everything set up. Thank you.

Taken from AAI website:

A coaching clinic on strength and conditioning (at beginner level) will take place on Saturday 27th of September at 1pm in Santry (gym) area. The session will be conducted by Dennis Roscoe from the UK. Dennis has extensive experience in this area and will demonstrate key lifting techniques such as the clean and outline the role of strength and conditioning for athletes. This session will be two hours in duration.

Dennis will also do a session on coaching the rotational shot technique at beginner level, focussing on key drills that will assist the coach in starting to coach this technique. This session will take place from 3.30pm to 5pm on Saturday 27th September at Santry stadium. The cost of attending this clinic is €10.

If you are interested in attending this clinic, please contact Ailish O’ Brien at 051/562593, 085/7268849 or by email: Ailish.obrien@itcarlow.ie

We have been having trouble with the site of recent which has not let us upload photos. Therefore we have set up a flikr account which can be accessed at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/irishthrowersclub

Start times for the upcoming Dr. O'Callaghan Memorial are:
Hammers: 10am
Shot, Discus, WF: 12pm
Entry is 20e for all events or 10e for the shot, discus and wf. If anyone wishes to attend and hasn't informed please do so at info@irishthrowersclub.com

3rd ITC Dr. O'Callaghan Hammer Decathlon Championships
Castleisland Co. Kerry, 24th August

HTA/ITC Irish Open Championships
Dunboyne Co. Meath 30th August

LSW European 56lbs Championships
Dunboyne Co. Meath 31st August

Further details to be announced

Shot Putt
Discus
Hammer
56lb W.F
56lb Putt
Kugelschocken
112lbs
Grenade
Greek Discus
35lb Hammer

The ITC is currently seeking and AAI permit so that distances acheived in the standerd weights can be used to acheive qualification distances for International Championships.

The 2008 ITC Len Braham Easter Throws Championship will take place at Castleisland on Sunday the 6th of April, starting at 10am. There will be 10 events (program to follow), block entery of 20e or 3e per event. Commemeritive boxed gold medal for all who block enter, commemeritive unboxed silver for all else.

The ITC has set up and online store currently providing T-Shirts and Hoodies branded with the ITC logo on the front and the ITC domain address on the back so you can wear it with pride at throwing meets and promote the ITC at the same time!
As you know the ITC is non-profit and all the profit generated from the stores sales will be reinvested into the ITC so we can add more competitions to the annual fixtures list and hopefully one day subsidise athletes traveling to the World LSW Champs in Hungary so Ireland can get a team going there.
And remember, all prices are in American dollers so there's no better time to buy! The cost of getting a large batch sent to Ireland and selling them is too expensive, with customs tax of nearly 200 euro so this is the only way to get ITC gear for the moment.

The Results from Dunboyne have finanly been put in the results section.
Due to technical difficulties we've had to take the blog down for a while. I'm sure you'll miss it.
Now you'll excuse me, I have to get ready, the Late Late Toy Show will be on soon.

First of all congratulations to Eileen O'Keefe who was voted as Field and Overall Irish Athlete at the inaugural Athletics Ireland National Athletics Awards. Full story can be found here http://www.rte.ie/sport/athletics/2007/1118/athletics.html

I'm just finishing the results from the Irish Open Championships which were held in Dunboyne and am working on the results of the World Championships. These came to me in the form of 42 sheets of paper. The results should be up by the end of the day

The Dr Pat O'Callaghan results are now up here. Apologies for the delay. The Shercock results will be up later tonight.

Check out the blog for an update on Joe Nagle

The sport of weight throwing has been hit hard with the passing of the 1968 Olympic Hammer Champion and twice world Record Holder Gyula Zsivotzky of Hungry on the 29th of September and the death of 4 times Olympic Discus Champion Al Oerter on October 1st.
While both were great athletes Oerter was a literal God of the Discus areana, dominating the sport as no other athlete in any other discipline would. He became the first athlete to win 3 and then 4 succesive Olympic Titles. Competeing in Rome in 1960 he over came the pain of a disc injury and torn cartilage in his lower ribs, removing a neck harness for his 5th round winning throw of 61.00m. Such rugged determination would see him setting his life time pb at the age of 43 in 1980 after having retired in 1968.
The IAAF article on Al Oerter can be found at: http://www.iaaf.org/news/Kind=2/newsId=41940.html
The IAAF article on Gyula Zsivotsky can be found at:
http://www.iaaf.org/news/Kind=2/newsId=41933.html

The Irish Throwers Club has announced information relateing to its upcoming Weights Pentathlon League which can be found .here.

Maybe dramatic was a bit too stong a word to use but the ITC will be announceing changes to its upcoming ITC Throws Meet on the 30th of September and the status of the Weights Pentatalon. The competition IS going ahead but we're altering the administrative format and other such confusing buzzwords. At the moment we're considering changing the Juvinile weights pentatalon to a weights quadratalon by dropping the weight at these agegroups due to various considerations which will be made apparent tomorrow evening. If it was up to me they'd be throwing the 56lb...
This is a very interesting development which the ITC hopes to be able to unvail tomorow evening (Sunday) at 5.00pm if all goes well. Would you belive me if I told yout the National Executive was going to be up all night working on this? Thought not. So, stay tuned throws fans, same throws time, same throws channel!

Hope you all like the spancy new banner we've added thanks to the hard work of Timmy Reidy of the TechComm. I also helped, though not very much.
The program for the Irish Throwers Club Throws Meet has been added to the Events and Results Section.
The ITC is proud to announce that it has appointed Hugh Fitzpatrick as the Director of the Competitions Organisation Committie. Hugh will assist the ITC with the organisation of its future competitions and help in the expansion of the ITCs competitions program. Good Luck Hugh.
Also, did I mention we have a new banner?

Irelands Eileen O'Keeffe has finished 3rd in group B and 5th over all in this mornings Qulifying for the womens World Championship Hammer Final with 71.07 on her first throw. The IAAF accredits her with the following:

"71m on my first throw, that's exactly what I had planned. I did the practice throw quite easy so I knew I had the big one here. I've just been a full-time athlete since June and it has made a difference to be able to train twice a day and get more time to recover. Getting a silver at the World University Games gave me more belief. I will definitely give it my all in the final to be in the top 8 and get close to my PB. I can see that 76m will probably take the first place."

The four athletes who finished ahead of her in the Qulifying got out there throws fairly easily but those behind her mostly took there 3 throws to qualify. If that trend continues Eileen could overtake Wenxiu Shang of China who threw 71.31 to qulify and possible take 4th. With Heidler (72.27), Moreno (72.87) and Brkljacic(74.69) in the top 3 a medal will be difficult and if we're hoping for someone to have a bad day our best hope would be Betty Heidler. Her acheivement so far is brillent, putting Irish weight throwing right back up there and here's wishing her the best for the final on Thursday

Well we've managed to get the blog back up and running just in time for the national Seniors this weekend. Also videos of Eoin Leen throwing discus were added to the videos account on Youtube. These can now be acsesed by clicking on "video" under media on the left.

While we all hope and dream, I never expected I'd live to see the day an Irish shotputter would finish 8th in a World Championship Final. Needing a hugh 19.20m to qualify to the final of the World Youth Championships in Ostrava, Czech Republic, Irelands Colm Quirke, son of Paul who if I'm not mistaken may have thrown the shot in a previous life (!) pulled out every last ounce of strength he had and with his last of the three qualifying throws shattered the Irish Youth record with a pb of 19.33m.
But, no rest for the wicked. Eight hours later at 6.45 he was back into the arena for the final. While he didn't have a great run at the final, scoring only one legal throw, his second of 18.98, it was good enough for an excellent finish of 8th in a competition in which his qualifying throw would only have moved him up one place! The athletes in 5th 6th and 7th all hit pbs and the top 3 marks were all 20m+, David Strol of Germany winning with an new World Youth Lead of 21.40.
Quirke can, as his country is, be proud of his acheivements and it could well be a qustion of how much longer his father can hold his Irish Senior Record. Colm goes into the Discus qualifications this evening at 5.55 (if thats Czech time their an hour ahead of Ireland) with a pb of 52.80 which he set in Tullamore last month. The AAI website informs us that the Irish Youth record is held by the great Frank O'Brien since 1981 at...52.74. While he needs 56.00 to qualify and he has allready more then established himself as one of Irelands future greats hopefully he'll put the matter of who holds the record to rest today.
Best of luck Colm, keep the flag flying!

I go away for a week and a half and what happens? The server goes into one of the most spectacular death spirals ever. While everything has been saved I have not yet been able to regain control over the blog, anyway, we here at the ITC are working hard (although not knowing what we're acctualy doing) to get everything back on track. Sorry for the delay.
When I do get the blog up and running I'll give a run down of the shot putt at the Cork City sports which myself and Patsy O'Connor were called into to compete against Reese Hoffa and Rubin Williams. Hoffa threw a new Irish All Comers Record of over 21 metres in what was a great competition to watch.

In relation to the upcoming Dr. Pat O'Callaghan Championships I have received some emails from people who will be competing and I will be ordering the medals early next week. If anyone else wants to compete and be sure of getting their medal on the day please email me at info@irishthrowersclub.com.

For the next two weeks I get to enjoy sun, good food and live ammunition at the discretion of the state at an RDF Camp in Kilworth, so there is going to more then likley be no updates anywhere on the website until then. I have updated the mens rankings...but the Technical Committie haven't uploaded them yet. I have put training links for the Hammer and Weight lifting (other events to follow soon) in the forum and told the TechComm to put them in the training section. I was told it would be up yesterday. And I belived them....Please address all angry emails to "Timmy" at info@irishthrowersclub.com

It is likely that I may have a second camp in early August so the minute I touch base I'm going to be putting in the orders for the Dr. Pat O'Callaghan medals. If you don't email me, turn up on the day and there isn't enough medals you'll just have to wait until I order more. To avoid this PLEASE email info@irishthrowersclub.com. please...

I'm quite happy with the success of the blog, in it's first week it's gotten over 1300 hits. If anyone has info or results or random rubbish they think belongs in it emails please. As it says in the blog best of luck to the Irish athletes competeing in the European Cup in Finland this weekend.

I have some packing left, so see you in two weeks. And if I don't return, tell them I died a heros death.

The Irish Throwers Club has set up it's own Blog and it can be found here at
http://www.irishthrowersclub.com/blog
If you don't know what a Blog is, then follow the link and you should find out.

I have compiled the Irish 56lbs Hammer Records and posted them under "Hammer Circle" in the Forum. When the Technical Committee gets back to work an area will be created in the main page for all the records. I put the 56lbs up first as it will be thrown at both Castleisland on the 26th of August and Dunboyne on the 1st and 2cd of September (all info in the Forum) I'm having trouble with the womens records but hopefully I'll have them up soon.


As you know at the Dr. Pat O'Callaghan Decatalon there will be 2 classes of medals. For those competeing in the Hammer Decatalon and the shot, discus and 56lb, entery is 15 euro and there is a Gold Commeritive medal for each competitor. For those competeing in just the shot, discus and 56lb the entery is 8euro and there is a silver commeritive medal for each competitor. Athletes will NOT be given a gold and silver for competing in all events. I would much appriciate it if people intending to compete would drop and email so that I can calculate how many medals I need to order as I do not intend to over order to be safe!. If I do not have enough medals on the day, those who emailed will be presented with the medals I have and those who didn't will be presented with theirs at a later time. So to be sure of getting you medal on the day please email info@irishthrowersclub.com as soon as possible

Until the Technical Committee returns from Sweden (don't ask) the information on this years Championships can be found by following the below link:
http://www.irishthrowersclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=124#124

Late this week the information will be in the Events and Results section of the Main Page. If anyone has any qustions you can contact me at info@irishthrowersclub.com

For a limited time the Irish Throwers Club is offering FREE personal Email Addresses! Instead of boring old yahoo.com or hotmail.com you can now have irishthrowersclub.com after your user name. And when you sign up for your free email account we'll also do the hard work of setting up a Forum account for you as well!
All you have to do is email info@irishthrowersclub.com with the exact text that you want to preced @irishthrowersclub.com ie. if I wanted my email to be jamesnagle@irishthrowersclub.com I would send the word jamesnagle to info@irishthrowersclub.com. We will also use that as your username for your forum account and issue you with a password, both of which you can change yourself anytime you want. Since the new an improved website went live we've gotten over 40,000 hits, over 350 a day! So help support the internets fastest growing (and best!) throwing site by signing up today.

The ITC wishes to offer it's condolences to Ger Nagle and his family on the recent passing of his father. Ger has always figured prominantly in throwing results, finishing 7th at last years European Cup and winning two bronzes at the National Championships. I am sure I can talk for all Irish throwers when I say our thoughts at with him and his family at this time.

It is the intention of the ITC to put togethor a Coaching Committie which will organise training days and identify and help talanted throwers at a young age. The ITC feels that an approch like this is missing and strongly needed in Irish athletics. We intend to start small, hopefully getting a coaching session togethor in around October and we will see where it can go from there.
The most important thing we need though is...coaches. When fully operational the ITC hopes to appoint 6 coaches to lead it's Coaching Committie, A Director, a coach for each of the 4 throwing disciplines and a coach for auxillary training (weights, plyometrics etc) It is our hope to use this as the basis of developing a nationwide coaching structure that will be able to assist up and coming athletes.
If anyone is interested please notify us at info@irishthrowersclub.com. At the moment we are just happy to hear from interested coaches who are prepared to coach athletes but if you feel like it please include relevent information such as events you are willing to coach, prior coaching experience etc.
It is very important that anyone who is willing to help, no matter how great or small their knowledge or experience, contact us. It is a great oppertunity for someone who is just starting out on their coaching path, perhaps have just done a course through the AAI, to get started. The ITC is commited to learning from the mistakes of current and earlier athletics bodies who have failed to implement an efficent coaching structure which has lead to many talanted throwers leaveing the sport early, many not developing their talant correctly or becoming disillusioned.
At a later stage we will also be extending the National Executive, the ITC governing body which at this time consists only of a solitary figure, but we understand that to expand too fast at the start is not the correct procedure. The main challanges ahead of the ITC at the moment are to form a coaching structure and get more athletes involved and competing at ITC competitions. Any advice on these matters are as always welcome to info@irishthrowersclub.com

Thank you.

James Nagle
ITC General Administrator

I'm glad to say that after a few teething problems the forum is up and running again. More information on the up coming Dr. Pat O'Callaghan championships will be up there early next week. Also the ITC has began compiling it's outdoor rankings for the year. The mens have allready been put up with the exception of the 56lbs as no event has been done with these yet. The womens will be up next week. The ITC rankings take into consideration throws done at all IAAF approved competitions or competitions that operate under IAAF rules such as ITC competitions, Intervarsities and we also use results from county championships. Please email any corrections or results for conclusion to info@irishthrowersclub.com

The Irish Throwers Club wishes to express its condolences at the death of Parry O'Brien who passed away on Monday the 23rd of April at the age of 75. O'Brien is most famed for inventing the modern glide technique in the shot putt which led to him breaking the world record 16 times between 1953 and 1959. O’Brien revolutionized the shot putt, leading the technical move forward and is the forefather of todays biomechanical approach to throwing. He was a great athlete and his contribution to throwing will never be forgotten.

Please follow this link to an obituary printed in the LA Times:

Photos taken at the 2cd Len Braham Championships in Castleisland are now in the images section. There is only a small sample and more will be added over the next few days. My thanks to Timmy Reidy and Kyle Kennedy for the work they put in

The results of the Len Braham Easter throws competition 2007 are now up, you can get to them in the Events and results section.

The World Throwers Championships will take place in Tata, Hungary this year and the Irish Throwers Club will be attending. If anyone wishes to travel please email me at info@Irishthrowersclub.com. This must be done by the end of April as I will need to book accomadation. At the moment 4 athletes have expressed an interest in attending. Information will be in the events section within the next few days

A discus competition has been added to the list of events for this coming Saturday. This means there are 4 discus based events on the day. For athletes competing in all 9 events entry is still a maximum of 20 euro.

The articles section, irish throwers history and the events section are now up. More content shall be added as time goes on.

Just to clarify, the reason the dates on all the news posts are set to the 1st of April is due to a new news managment system that was implemented over the last few days, all old news posts had to be reorganized and reposted leading to the dates being the same.

We are proud to announce that Eddie Mulcahy has been appointed as the first President of the Irish Throwers Club. More details can be found HERE.

The II HTA/ITC Len Braham Easter Throws Championships will be held at An Riocht Track, Castleisland, Co Kerry on the 7th of April at 10.30am. Further details in the Forum.

For the time being, the media section is down, bear with us as we get everything set up properly over the next few days. If you have any photo's or videos taken at recent irish athletic events please forward them to media@irishthrowersclub.com. Also dont be afraid to contact us and tell us what you think of the new site, and if it needs any improvments. Thanks.

Welcome to the new and improved IrishThrowersClub.com, alot of changes have been made to the overall design of the site, and some sections have undergone a cleanup/restructuring.

The site is no longer hosted with the free eircom hosting service, and has been located on a new webserver. This will give the webmasters more freedom when it comes to content creation and speed. Needless to say you can expect there to be next to NO downtime and no annoying popup ads hindering your browsing. Also a new forum has been set up so please go and register. Announcments will also be made on this page and in the forum about upcoming events and competitions. Thanks for your patience while we got this thing up and running again.