The crowd in St Anne’s Park for the Dublin Masters cross country championships, which followed the intermediates, were treated to a cross country running masterclass by Colm Rooney in the final race of the day. Colm, the 2025 Harrier of the year, was simply majestic tearing away from the field from the off, indeed by the first corner he was maybe 20m clear. Thereafter he never took the foot off the gas and was lapping many of the athletes on the final 1500 lap of 4 to retain his Dublin Masters cross country title with a winning margin of almost a minute and 1/2. Simply superb. Although this was a combined M 35+ race Colm was in the M40 category where he took gold. The Clonliffe masters team was weakened by unavailabilities finishing well down the pecking order: Colm 1st, Robbie Burns was 83rd, Eoin Rafter 84th, Michael Quigley 85th and Shane Casey 97th.
Likewise the M50+ team finished well down the pecking order – Brian O’Reilly was 1st home in 28th, Kevin Dowling 36th, Richie Barr 43rd, Alan Worrall 72nd and Tom Monks 76th.
Earlier in the M65+ team event the Clonliffe team of Philip O’Doherty, Diarmuid Doyle and Declan Murray took team silver. Individually Philip O’Doherty took M65 gold and Pat Devitt M70 bronze.
The Clonliffe women’s masters teams also had a good day. In the W35+ team category bronze was won by the team of Jenny Johnston, 6th and W40 individual silver medalist, Cindy Hickey 11th (4th W45), Ciara Peelo 19th and Natalia Lungu 20th. The scoring 4 were backed up well by Elaine McLaughlin 42nd, Clodagh Moriarty 64th and Aideen O’Connor 73rd.
The W50+ team finished 6th led home in 19th by Aimee Ahern, 4th W55, 24th Siobhan McCarthy and 29th Sinead De Bello. The other squad members were Orla Deignan 34th, Fionnuala Smith 37th and Yvonne McDonagh 48th.
With the intermediate men and women taking team gold it made for an excellent opening to the 2026 year by the Clonliffe crew. The appetite is now well and truly whetted as we look forward to the Nationals in Abbottstown on February 15.