Yesterday’s national cross country championships brought better fortunes for the Clonliffe contingent than last year’s with bronze for the senior men, silver for the U/20 men and silver for the U/14 boys mined from the Derry mud. The Templemore Sports Complex proved to be a fine venue for the nationals although with the country now effectively in the Irish ‘rainy season’ the saturated ground quickly turned to mud and that coupled with driving rain and strong winds made for a testing occasion for all.
We’ll start this report at the end: the senior men’s national, once again held over a distance of 7500m and encompassing 5 x 1500 laps. From the starters gun the field tore down the starting straight and after roughly 200 headed through the flowing river of mud to take in the 1st lap out in the country with the pack headed by Efrem Gidey who has certainly gotten out faster than more recent nationals. Efrem’s lead was, however, short lived as he was caught by the group containing all the favourites – Mullingar Harriers pairing of Jack O’Leary and Cormac Dalton, Brian Fay (Raheny), Darragh McElhinney (Bantry) and CNDR Track’s Nick Griggs. It was a brilliant race to watch I was only on the final lap that the medal positions became clear as Dalton drove on with Fay and Griggs on his shoulder. It was the Raheny man who captured the national title making use of his blistering kick down the grassed home straight. Griggs took 2nd with Dalton 3rd. Efrem was 6th, but with Griggs being U/23 was 5th senior, so fingers crossed that he gets that coveted European Cross Country place.
On the team front the Clonliffe men battled gamely, Colm Rooney was coming to the field once again like a hot knife through butter, lap after lap he gained places, 40th at the end of lap one to 15th at the close of proceedings. The Dublin cross country champion’s tactics were mirrored by both Fintan Kerins, climbing from 60th up to 28th and by Ben Guiden who went from 67th to 32nd. This monumental effort resulted in the team capturing bronze on 81 points as prerace favourites CNDR Track romped home on 49 points with Mullingar Harriers 2nd on 68.
The scoring 4 were well backed up by Mahad Egaal 42nd, Stephen Cashin 56th, Sergiu Ciobanu, a great club man running in his umpteenth national cross, 69th and Sean O’Leary, who had missed a block of training through injury lately, 74th.
Both Efrem and Colm picked up national intercounty gold medals for Dublin.
The Clonliffe senior women gave it absolutely everything over the 5 grueling laps. With a team of 5 they were always going to be up against it but every one them can be proud of the doggedness and effort that they put in with 2 of the team making their national cross debut. The team was led home and 51st by Helena Butterly, next in was Niamh Kelly, 73rd with Laura Tuite, 77th. These two had enjoyed a race long interclub battle that was only settled over the final lap. Julie Larkin in 81st completed the scoring 4, with a tiring Alannah Cooley 83rd, as the team placed 7th.
The senior women’s race at the top 3 of Fiona Everard (Bandon), Niamh Allen (Leevale) and Danielle Donegan (Tullamore) 3rd with Leevale AC taking the team title.
The U/20 race incorporated the U/18 championship. The Clonliffe men’s team suffered a blow on the morning when illness forced the withdrawal from the team of Aidan Benjacar, still however the team rallied and gave it their all. Tom Breslin in particular was in inspired form ploughing through the mud to take a fantastic individual bronze medal and, subject to official confirmation, a place on the Irish U/20 European cross-country team. Harry Bogan ran a superb race to take 42nd with Matei Ursachi in 43rd and then Lorcan Benjacar in 57th as the Clonliffe U/20 men took team silver on 145 points, behind Donore Harriers 1st (89 points) with Lagan Valley on 147 points in 3rd.
The rest of the team also put in admirable performances, Liam Arthur 61st, Aaron Murray 94th, Rory Quill 106th, Joshua Chalmers 132nd, Jack Quinn 140th and Edy Blacque 156. Unfortunately due to withdrawals through injury and so on the U/18 boys team was incomplete.
Tom Breslin also took U/20 intercounty gold for Dublin.
In the women’s U/20 and U/18 combined race Isla Duncan had a fine run to take 22nd overall and in the process secured individual intercounty gold medal at U/20. In the U/18 category she placed 12th overall to secure an individual bronze and also intercounty gold on the Dublin team and inter-provisional U/18 bronze for Dublin. On the U/20 team front the team of Isla, Ayana O’Callaghan, 67th, Sophie Kernan 81st and Hannah Walsh 94th finished in 10th position. In the U/18 category that same quartet finished in 6th position. The other team members were Aisling Kehoe, 136th, Rachel Ardiff 149th and Mae Rose Mason 157th.
Moving then to the earlier programme of the juvenile even age championships, the morning had gotten off to a superb start as the Clonliffe U/14 boys team took national silver with a brilliant team performance from the lads. There was a standout performance in particular from Luke Tracey who finished in 5th position. With a scoring 4 of Luke, Daire Cronin 30th, Sam Steenson 38th and Seamus Phelan 43rd team had a total of 116 points to secure silver behind Ennis on 108, clear of Skerries AC on 171 3rd. The scoring 4 were backed up by Andrew Low in 62nd and Finn McGurren 88th. Luke and Daire also claimed intercounty gold on the Dublin team and interprovincial bronze.
The U/16 girls were next in action where Kate Gill ran an excellent race to lead the team home in 52nd, and in the process was a scorer on the Dublin intercounty team that took super national silver, great reward for all the hard work that Kate has put in over the winter. The team of Kate, Carragh Nigfhloinn 58th, Sophia Tennant 64th, Alex Wallace 93rd, Geve Duncan 119th and Ella O’Sullivan 138th finished in 11th position.
The U/16 boys team also put in a great shift, most of the team were running a year up and will benefit enormously from the experience and this will stand to them for their U/15 nationals in 2 weeks time. The team took 9th position led home in 34th by Conor Kenny. Next in was Mark Kelly 65th, Braxton O’Shea 85, Hayden Kenny 93rd, Cormac Tynan 101st and Darragh Nicholson Canny 105th.
Many congratulations to all of our athletes on their performances at nationals, it was a successful and very satisfying weekend for the club, sincere thanks to all our wonderful coaches for the countless hours they have put in to training and preparing our athletes and huge thanks to the extraordinary logistics team of Eugenia and Stephen on a superb job.
