Tallaght AC Back on the podium
(by Ray Fitzsimons)

Tallaght AC athletes were certainly busy at the weekend and got off to a great start on Saturday when the club’s Ladies team won the Dublin Intermediate Cross Country Bronze medal at Tymon Park. Laura Mc Donnell who is fast approaching her best won third place overall and her team mates Elaine Mooney, Liz Hanley and Gwen Baker all scored well to secure the team bronze medal. Laura Mc Donnell will go forward to represent Dublin in the National Intermediate Championships in Killybegs in December. Also travelling to the Donegal town will be Danny O Farrell following his finish in the Men’s Intermediate race and his team of Desie Shorten, James Crowley, Darren Cranston and Ray Fitzsimons can be well pleased with their fifth place ranking in this hotly contested race.

Monday morning brought the Adidas Minithon which was raced over 2500M for children aged 8 to 18 and Tallaght AC took three of the six podium positions. 
Robert Fitzsimons brought the large Tallaght support to its feet when coming home in second place overall from the large field of 1200 entries.
Aisling Johnston was the first female athlete home and Aisling was joined on the podium by Bronagh O Hanlon, who was the second female athlete home in what was a most enjoyable event. Over twenty athletes from Tallaght AC participated in this event and individual placings will be published later.

The major event of the weekend of course was the Aididas Dublin City Marathon which also doubled as the National Marathon and again the club was strongly represented in this event.
Derek Quinn was first home for the club in a fine time of 2.42 and Gerry O Brien and Garry Clarke also broke the three-hour mark when finishing in 2.55 and 2.56 respectively. Vivian O Hanlon, Jimmy Phibbs, Bill Murphy, Colm Barcoe, Frank Ferguson, Tom Burgess, Eddie Coyle and Christie O Reilly also ran really well as did the Club’s ladies who were led home by Anna King in 3.21 with Mary Honan and Carol Lynch also running very well. The club is hopeful that it will feature in the Team and Vet prizes the results for which have not yet been released.