Lara O’Byrne continues to improve and impress! The 14 years-old St. Joseph’s Secondary School (Lucan) student won 5 gold medals at the recent Dublin Indoor Juvenile championships. The versatile multi-events athlete recorded wins in the High Jump, Shot Putt, 60m Hurdles and Pole Vault, which also incorporated the Leinster championship. Her medal tally was completed with a silver in the Long Jump and a bronze in the under 16s Girls relay.

Lara joined Donore Harriers back in May 2009 when she was encouraged to do so by her close friend Cara Brennan. Cara’s father Liam was a former sprinter with the club who still holds the club record for the 100 metres. Lara’s early athletics exploits were to compete in the 600m and 800m; and she impressed with a 7^th place finish at the Dublin Juvenile cross country championships back in 2011.

When the club re-structured its coaching programme in 2011 Lara opted to join a sprints group coached by the aforementioned Liam Brennan and Ray O’Keeffe. Since that period she has been making steady progress and her versatility has allowed her to try different track and field disciplines. She now boasts impressive best performances of 9.90s in the 60m Hurdles, 4.71m in the Long Jump, 1.56m in the High Jump, 8.87m in the Shot Putt and 2.50m in the Pole Vault.

Lara hopes to improve on her 4^th place in the recent All Ireland Juvenile Indoor Combined events when she competes in the summer outdoors championships. Her sporting hero is 2012 Olympic Heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis-Hill and Lara holds her own aspirations of competing in the 2024 Olympic Games.

When asked: “who is the biggest messer in the club” Lara quickly retorted with a smile: “me”! A very amiable Lara has obviously a great fondness of her club, stating: “everyone is so nice and friendly and the coaches are great”. However, her biggest supporter is her sister Ariane, a Leaving Certificate student, who attends at virtually all of Lara’s competitions.

Away from her studies and athletics Lara likes to go wakeboarding and to listen to her favourite boyband JLS.

Best of luck in the future Lara from your many friends at Donore Harriers!