Our juvenile athletes
again did well in a number of competitions last week. In the
Leinster Schools Cross Country Championships held in the DCU
sports ground on Wednesday last, all of our athletes finished in
the top 20. First to compete was Roisin O’ Hanlon, and she
maintained her good form when finishing 11th in the junior girls
1500m contest for Presentation Terenure.
Jade Corcoran running for St Pauls Greenhills made the cut for the
National Championships when taking the penultimate qualifying
position (11th) in the Junior girls 2,000m event, whilst Brian
Connolly ran a very strong race in the boys 3k, finishing 6th and
qualifying for Drimnagh Castle.
In the Inter girls 3k event Aisling Johnston secured an individual
qualification with her 5th place finish and combined with Rebecca
Game (14th) and Stacey O’ Connor to win the team silver for
Colaiste de h-Ide, with Laura Finlay also featuring on the school
team which qualifies for the Nationals, whilst in the boys
category Peter Fitzsimons, despite running a good race had to
settle for 16th for St Marks.
At senior level Anthony Lieghio qualified for Drimnagh Castle with
a good 8th place finish in the 6,000m event and Bronagh O’ Hanlon
representing St Marks in the 2.5k event found the opposition a bit
too strong on the day.
On Friday last 15 of our juveniles received their well deserved
cross country league awards at the Dublin County Board
presentation disco in St John Bosco school hall, Navan Road. These
included 4 outright winners, Aisling Johnston U15 girls, Niall
Forrester U15 boys, Bronagh O’ Hanlon and David Somerville, both
at U18 level.
Elsewhere on Sunday last we had 6 teams, combining both boys and
girls, who participated in the mixed distance cross country relays
in St Annes Park Raheny.
At U12 level Jonathan Fleet covered the first 200m leg with both
Jade Johnston and Killian Morris running 500m each and Dylan
Murphy running the last leg to take second place. In the U14
contest we had two teams who both did very well against 11 other
teams. Cian Delaney led team 1 on the 200m opening leg, Ciara
Henry took the baton on the second leg of 500m, Sean Fitzsimons
the third leg over 700m and Emma Prior ran the last 1600m, with
team 2, Zara Gaynor, Robyn Reece and Chris Delaney running the
same distances.
Leigh Bolger ran the opening 200m in the U16 contest, Rebecca Game
the second leg of 800m, Jade Corcoran 1200m and Niall Forrester
ran the final 1800m, crossing the line in first place. The club
had two teams in the U18 contest which was run over similar
distances as the U16’s and Laura Finlay, Peter Fitzsimons,
AnthonyLieghio and Robert Fitzsimons combined to take a clear cut
win ahead of Raheny with our second team, Sean Bolger, Brian
Gregan, Aoibheann Tierney and Carla Fullam taking 3rd. In addition
Emma Reid and Adam Prior volunteered to guest for Raheny and
Fingallians at U12 level.