Nothing captures the pure essence of athletics better than the Irish Schools Track and Field Championships, and 110 years after the first staging of the event, the future also remains in capable hands.Across two days and 128 events in Tullamore – with a 50-50 gender split – it came down to a thrilling climax on Saturday evening when two of the longest standing records in the books fell to the new generation.In the last field event of the day, Theo Hanlon from Kildare Town Community School stood in the shot put circle with only one thing on his mind: the senior boys’ record of 17.93 metres which had stood to Victor Costello since 1990. Two years after that feat, Costello competed in the 1992 Olympics, before winning 126 caps for Leinster and 39 for Ireland.Costello’s record had lasted 36 years for good reason, but Hanlon had already shown his potential in winning the Leinster title. Here, his massive fourth-round effort of 18.24m set the outstanding new mark – brilliantly underlining his own potential too.Then in the senior boys 4x100m relay, another record from 1990 was erased, when the quartet from St Fintan’s Sutton won in 42.66 seconds, bettering the 42.70 championship record which had stood for 36 years to Coláiste Chríost Rí.Both senior 400m hurdles produced championship records, with Des O’Neill – also from St Fintan’s Sutton – breaking the 52-second barrier for the first time in Irish Schools history, his time of 51.89 seconds eclipsing the 52.1 record set by Philip Beattie in 1982.Ellis McHugh from Waterpark College in Waterford also broke new ground when breaking the 60-second barrier in the senior girls’ event.The race for the fastest schoolboy and schoolgirl in Ireland rarely disappoints, and both Joshua Awujoola from Dromore High School in Co Down and Tiffany Nwaedozie from Ashton School in Cork proved themselves a class apart when 100m-200m senior sprint doubles.Cliodhna Reilly of St Vincent's Dundalk celebrates after winning the Under-16 girls' mile at the 123.ie All-Ireland Schools Track and Field Championships at Tullamore Harriers Athletics Club in Offaly. Photograph: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile Awujoola won the 100m in 10.74, then came from behind to win the 200m in 21.72. Nwaedozie took the 100m title in 11.91, before adding the 200m gold in 25.01.Lorcan Forde Dunne from St Mary’s in Drogheda saved one of the best middle distance performances until last, winning the senior boys’ 1,500m title in gun-to-tape style, clocking 3:54.34. Leia Ryan from Castleknock CC won the senior girls’ title in similarly impressive style, clocking 4:30.49.European Under-20 cross-country bronze medallist Emma Hickey from St Mary’s New Ross also battled hard to beat Megan Brunt from Loreto Dalkey in the senior 3,000m, winning in 9:31.75.Conrad Latham from St Paul’s Raheny timed his kick to win the senior 800m in 1:52.16, with Isabelle Gaffney from St Augustine’s College Dungarvan winning a fiercely competitive intermediate 800m in 2:10.33.Since their inception in 1916, 94 Irish Schools champions have gone on to represent Ireland in the Olympics, including Ronnie Delany, who won the senior 800m in 1953, with Rhasidat Adeleke and Sharlene Mawdsley adding their name to that list in Paris 2024.There were plenty more potential Olympians on show this year. Erin Friel from Loreto Letterkenny, who last month ran the World Relays in Botswana, won the senior 400m in 54.59, pressed all the way by Sofia Granjo from Presentation College Carlow.Back in the field, Michael Kent from Good Counsel New Ross and Ryan Onoh from Ashton Cork were locked in battle in the senior long jump, before Kent took the win in 7.57m. That added 7cm to the championship record set by Ciarán McDonagh in 1995, McDonagh later becoming the first and still only Irish athlete to clear 8m. Within 10 minutes, Kent was over at the pole vault runway, winning that title too, bettering his own championship record when clearing 4.71m.One stubborn record did remain in the books, John Treacy’s senior 5,000m mark of 14:17.0, set in 1974, tested again by Lucas Lyons from St Clare’s Comprehensive Manorhamilton, before he finished in 14:21.68. One of these years perhaps.