Rebecca Sprints to Silver in all Ireland Country
(by Ray Fitzsimons)

Tallaght Athletic Club's Juvenile athletes travelled to Athlone on Sunday to compete in the AAI All Ireland Juvenile B Cross Country Championships.

The individual performance of the day must go to Rebecca Game who beat over one hundred and twenty opponents to take the individual silver medal in the Girls U13 race. Racing up with the pack from the start, Rebecca looked out of the medals with 300M to go as the very testing conditions began to take effect and Rebecca fell back to fourth place. The sight of the finish line however galvanised her to produce a superb sprint finish to overhaul two of the leaders and secure a superb silver medal.

Ciaran Dunne led home Jason Power, Niall Forrester, Eoghan Hennesy and Frank Jones to take the Inter Club Team silver medal for Tallaght also at U13 degree.

Anthony Leighio and Sean Bolger stormed home at U15 with individual bronze medals apiece and with Luke Coleman, Peter Fitzsimons and Brian Gregan also finishing close behind, their combined places were more than good enough to secure the Inter Club Team Gold Medal for Tallaght. This is a great achievement for this hard working squad .

Aoibheann Tierney, Stacy O Connor, Carla Fullam and Sarah Bodie also did the club proud at U15 level when their combined places saw them just miss out on a team medal with 4th place.

Bronagh O Hanlon took the U17 race by the scruff of the neck and raced to the front from the gun. She bravely led the race all the way but in a ding dong battle with four other athletes to the line she had to settle for a well earned bronze medal. Aoife Mc Carthy will also be well placed with her performance in a very competitive field.

Our youngest competitors of the day were our U11 athletes and the girls team who finished ninth overall were led home by Anne Marie Mc Clean in 42nd place while Sean Fitzsimons also tried hard in the boys race.
Click here to see some pics of the day.

Also on Sunday, a large Tallaght team made the short journey to Raheny to compete in the Raheny 5 Mile Road Race. The race attracted 865 runners and Tallaght AC had a good day with Chris Healy finishing 8th in the Junior Classification, Laura Mc Donnell was 10th in the Senior Womens grade and with Jenny O Connor and Tracey Williams they won the fifth place overall senior ladies prize. Dessie Shorten and Derek Quinn were 3rd and 6th respectively in the Mens Over 45 grade and with Bill Murphy also finishing strongly this team won second place in this grade. Keith Sherlock secured a top fifty placing in the overall classification when finishing in 43rd place and James Crowley and Colm Barcoe had personal best performances.