Darren McBrearty wins Athletics Ireland Athlete of the Month for February

Athletics Ireland is delighted to announce that Letterkenny AC's Darren McBrearty has been selected as the Crowne Plaza Athlete of the Month for February 2011. The 20 year old DCU athlete from Donegal has been in excellent form this season over 800m indoors.

On February 2nd this year, competing in Vienna Indoor Classic Meeting over 800m, McBrearty won the event in a new personal best time of 1:47:87, beating off top-class European competition in the process. McBrearty's winning time was over a full second faster than the 1:48:88 he achieved when finishing 2nd in Celtic Cup in Cardiff in January. Darren's winning time also gave him the European Indoor Championship qualifying standard, where in Paris over the first weekend in March, he reached the semi-finals with excellent front running and tactical awareness. McBrearty's performance in Paris went some way perhaps in easing the pain of not taking the Irish Indoor title in Belfast in mid-February, when he was beaten in 2nd place by his club mate Mark English, January's Athlete of the Month"I'm delighted, it's a real honor. And it's great to keep the Award up in the North West! Training is going well and I'm looking forward to outdoors," said Darren on hearing of his winning selection.

The Athlete of the Month Award is kindly sponsored by Crowne Plaza Hotels and recognizes the Irish senior and junior athlete who has performed to a particularly high standard over the month in question, and is chosen by an independent Selection committee.