Antrim Forum will host the Woodie’s DIY All-Ireland Juvenile Championships for the first time on Saturday and Sunday, July 5-6 - an event is organized by Athletics Ireland and supported by Woodie’s DIY and Antrim Borough Council.

The event is the grand final following provincial competitions across Ireland in the month of June. The NI & Ulster championships were held last month where there were nearly 1000 individual and over 1700 event entries and the meet produced some quality results with many of the athletes in the running as contenders for the All-Ireland title.

Lagan Valley’s Curtis Woods and Ciara Mageean will not be competing at the AAI Juvenile competition as they have been selected for the Irish Team travelling to Poland to compete at the World Youth Games.

A number of athletes who have achieved the qualifying standard for the Commonwealth Youth Games in India will be in contention for an All-Ireland medal include Gaby McNally (hammer), Dean Adams (100m), Mark Patterson (800m) and Ben Reynolds (high jump) all of you are likely to feature in the medal rostrum.

Claire Wilkinson recently travelled to Portugal as part of the Irish team and is unlikely to face much opposition for the top spot in the Pole Vault competition. Hannah Todd has had an excellent season so far jumping 11.36m at the Senior championships.

At the Ulster Age Groups Ballymena and Antrim’s Joanna Mills topped the podium on three occasions as she continued her amazing season by taking a long/short hurdles double to add to her Long Jump title and is likely to repeat that feat this weekend.

Finally up and coming notable prospect Adam Ingram is the athlete to watch in the junior age group along with Katie Kirk in the girls. Other key athletes include Rebecca Ward (Finn Valley), Jamie Devine (City of Derry), Ciaran Dolan (St. Michael’s) and the Monaghan twins- Patrick and Andrew from Rathfriland.

City of Derry took 14 titles while Lagan Valley (12) North Down (10) Regent House (11) were hot on their heels in the Ulster Championships.

The battle will be on for each of these clubs to top the medal table in such a prestigious competition. Antrim’s host club Ballymena and Antrim topped the unofficial medal table with 17 golds at the Ulster Championships and amazingly out of 36 athletes competing, 34 of them have qualified for the All-Ireland final on their home training ground.

Athletics Northern Ireland commented: “We are delighted that such a prestigious event is coming to Northern Ireland for the first time ever and we hope it will be a successful weekend for all involved”.

Antrim Forum has held a number of high profile athletic events recently including the Celtic Games in August 2007 and all the NI & Ulster cross country and track and field championships in 2008.