Dublin Masters XC - Medals from the mud

Cross country runners are a hardy bunch and the Dublin intermediate and masters cross country championships proceeded yesterday on a bitterly cold, wet and muddy St Anne’s Park. Dublin Masters xc medals are hard won and casting aside the festive season excesses it proved to be a fruitful day for the Rathfarnham athletes. Great credit again to Raheny Shamrocks who never fail to deliver big championship occasions and always greatly supported by their local athletic mad community making for wonderful exciting championship atmosphere. The traditional course had been revised taking in the Clontarf sea facing aspect and incorporating a testing course featuring 2 descendent and climbs which cut up as the afternoon wore on making for proper cross country be brave and keep on your feet conditions.

In the team events Rathfarnham took home Gold Team medals in M35 (Mark Ryan, Mathew Kane, David Power and Louis McCarthy) and M65 (Tom Cuddy, Sean Doyle and Donal Murphy) and Silver Team medals in F50 (Donna Mahon, Vanessa Sallier and Sheelagh Jones. So team medals in 3 of the 6 team events!

It was the intermediate women who are first into the fray with sole intermediate runner Laura Mills getting the Club rolling. Well, in fact Adam Jones, Owen and PJ were on course some hours earlier strategically setting up Club team and facilities and club athletes are appreciative of their work, thank you lads. The first of the Masters races was the combined W50 plus and M65 race over 3000m, with the weather conditions now worsening as the rain was now lashing down and the course gradually turning into pretty much a mud bath. In this combined race Donna Mahon ran a fine race to finish 2nd in F50 and take silver and Sheelagh Jones going one better winning Gold in F65. Special mention to club stalwart Jackie Kingston digging herself out of the Dublin mountain snow and finishing a fine 4th. In the M65 race Tom Cuddy had a great battle to the line with Sportsworld ultimately winning Silver medal with Sean Doyle taking Bronze medal in 3rd. Next up were the M50 and F35 races with Sean McCreery taking Silver in M55 category and Laura Ryan taking Bronze in F35.

The final race on the card was the fiercely competitive men’s M35 plus race and after relentless rain and the previous 5 races the course was an absolute mud bath by this stage. Mark Ryan however made light of the conditions finishing 2nd overall against his younger rivals and taking Gold in M45 category. Great credit also to Mathew Kane finishing 4th overall taking Silver in M40. Alexey Marchenko better known for his marathon exploits ran a great race to take Silver in M35 category.



In the battle for the Masters overall Pat Hooper Cup and despite the heroic efforts over the last few weeks of Team Supremo Owen McLoughlin, hosts Raheny Shamrocks prevailed by 3 points ahead of Clonliffe and 5 points ahead of Rathfarnham. This was a well marshalled club effort with 45 club athletes defying atrocious weather conditions and giving their all. “if we can winter this out, we can summer anywhere!” So a fine start to the year for club athletes with easier days ahead. Next up is the national intermediate and masters championships taking place in Westport on 9 February.

Report by Sean McCreery