from Donore Harriers website John Travers had a great performance to finish first U23 Irish man in the European Cross Country in Budapest with a 44th place finish. It is good to see him returning to form in what was a good day for the Irish particularly the women with Fionnuala Britton winning the women’s race and leading the Irish team to an historic gold medal.
On home ground we had another great day for the ladies who won a superb silver team medal in the National Novice in Adamstown. Íde Ní Dhomhnaill was first home in an excellent 5th place, she was prominent throughout the race and held on to her position despite aggressive competition, not far behind was her sister Sorcha who held on to the top group of ten throughout and finished a brilliant 13th, Sinead McCauley had a powerful run and a great last lap to pull back a number of runners to finish 21nd a mere 12 secs behind Sorcha, close in contention then was Breda Mahoney who had her best run yet in 42nd, Maedbh Peavoy wasn’t far off in 58th with Sharon Moore tracking her closely in 71st , brilliant performances by all. Our men’s team were out of the medals but all competitors had great races in a very deep competitive field, an early casualty was Eric Keogh who looked to be having a great race in the early stages but had to pull up half way through leaving Fergal Whitty to be the first man home in 64th with Darren Hand getting back to form rapidly in 70th, Fred Kiernan had a great run in 90th and was followed in by Robert Scanlon 124th, marathon runner Emmet Ó Briain 130th, veteran Gerard McDonald in a solid 144th, first time cross country racer Conor McCauley who ran a very good race in 150th followed by Padraig McGreal in 161st, Ronan Lambe in his first race since the Dublin marathon in 166th followed by stalwart Des Gill in 180th and Niall O’Reilly in 186th, great effort all around and good to see a full team competing.
In the Aware 10k we had Ian O’Leary in 12th place in 34.48, followed by Anne Curley 3rd woman 37.59, Dervila Holmes 4th woman in 38.44, Richard Beades 40.52, apologies for anybody missed here.
In the Clonakilty Half Marathon on Saturday, we had Arthur Connick running 147.06 followed by Joan McTernan in 153.30 and Colm Nugent in 1.55.24. In the mini marathon (10k) we had Sarah Ni Ruairc in 50.40 followed by Dave Hudson in 54.18. Kevin English was 2nd in the BHAA Vodafone 5k cross country in Marley Park and Ian Redican was 84th.
