Nov 1, 2010 [Noel Guiden ] The Clonliffe Club juvenile athletes were in action for the Dublin even ages championships which were hosted by Clonliffe Harriers, in Santry Demesne Park on Sunday October 31st. Thankfully the heavy overnight rain had dispersed in time for the commencement of the Championships at 11.30 a.m., however, the underfoot conditions quickly became fairly sloppy and this coupled with the ridiculously long distances for athletes of this age made for a pretty tough experience for the boys and girls. Having said that, however, the club’s athletes rose to the challenge and did all that was asked of them by toughing it out and battling on to the finish.
Highlights of the day included Hope Sumola’s very good run in the girls U/10 race and a good run also by Ben Guiden in the boys U/10 race to place tenth and earn a Dublin Championship Bronze medal. The boys in the U/10s, however, were short an athlete but all three had very good runs. We only had one runner in the girls U/12 race Amy McGrath who rose gamely to the challenge and ran an excellent race from start to finish. The boys U/12 team ran very well and again each and every one of them did all that was asked, Joseph Hession won a bronze medal placing around seventh or eighth and was well backed up by Keith Hodson, Timothe Lawless and Darren Lawlor who was flying at the finish.
The U/14 girls faced a daunting 3000 metres around Santry Demesne (bearing in mind that this was the distance that the junior women had to run one can see why these young athletes found the distance so daunting). Even though they were missing two team members the girls ran very well, first finisher was Stephanie McCaul followed by Kate Hession and Sarah Linnott who was stepping up a year and ran superbly in her longest ever race and deserves great credit for her performance. We only had one boy in the U/14 race, Luke Memery who ran very well in mid field. Also flying solo was Rachel Murray in the girls U/16 race again a good gutsy run from the sole Clonliffe Harrier in that race.
Finally then onto the U/16 boys who always run well as a team. Liam Ashton got himself into the lead bunch and held on gamely eventually placing fifth with a very good run and he was well backed up by John Buckley who as always gritted his teeth and got stuck in with Craig McCourt also running well along with Ryan Cleary fourth scorer and Louis Hales the fifth scorer. The U/16 boys were rewarded for their performance by winning silver medals. An excellent performance.