The Clonliffe senior women travelled to the Curragh this afternoon for the Leinster cross country championships. The team had been depleted in recent days as illness took its toll leaving 3 of the team members ‘in sickbay’ however the 5 remaining athletes rolled up their sleeves and put in really solid runs that delivered team bronze.
It was an excellent course at the Curragh with plenty of grass, no mud , the odd ‘agricultural deposit’, and a couple of long testing uphills. All went out conservatively over the opening lap and then really got to work over the remaining 3 laps coming through the field strongly with Niamh Kelly leading the team home in 8th place, next in was Laura Tuite in 12th and after a very good run Alannah Cooley took 26th position and then two places further back in 28th Jess Gallagher, those were the scoring 4, a fantastic run also in 29th and only a few seconds behind was Rachel McFadden. Niamh also picked up Leinster intercounty gold as the 5th scorer on the Dublin team.
Winners today were DCH on 33 points, then UCD 48 points and Clonliffe 74 points.