Flashback to 1968 with ten Leitrim athletes ranked in Connacht Athletics top ten lists
Its that time of the year when we traditionally look back on the previous 12 months but Connacht Athletics decided to cast the net that bit further back when they posted the top ten performances from the province's athletes from 1968, a year that featured ten different Leitrim athletes making the rankings.
Naturally enough, in a year that saw him complete a never-equalled performance of winning the All-Ireland Colleges Senior and Intermediate boys cross-country titles within half an hour, Eddie Leddy is prominently featured with the double Olympian ranked in the top ten Connacht performances in four events.
Amazingly, two of those ranking performances came as splits in longer races - his 880 yards time of 2.06.0 saw him ranked fifth overall but it came during a mile race while his 2 mile time of 9.24.0 put him second in that event, despite it coming during a three mile race.
Of the ten Leitrim athletes ranked in Connacht's top ten as published by the Tuam Herald and resurrected now by Connacht Athletics, all but J McNiff of Carrick-on-Shannon came from Ballinamore AC, McNiff ranked in the Pole Vault thanks to his 9'0" clearance.
Two events saw three Leitrim athletes ranked in the top ten - in the Women's 100 yards, Patricia Griffin (12.8) was joined by her fellow Ballinamore athletes F Hegarty (13.4) and M Sharpley (13.5) while the Men's Mile saw Eddie Leddy (4.17.4) joined by his brother PJ (4.34.0) and M McTague (4.52.0).
Other Ballinamore athletes in the 1968 rankings were M Earley in the Women's 800m and in the Men's High Jump, M Farrell was ranked joint fifth with his 5'5" clearance.