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Round up: On the country this weekend it was second places all round for Clonliffe athletes. Sean Doran was 2nd twice, at yesterday’s BHAA in Tymon Park over 6000m and again today at the Leinster Intermediate Cross Country over 8000m in Gowran, Co.Kilkenny. 2nd place also today for Martin Treacy in the Leinster M60 xc.
Also on Saturday the 12th Jayme Rossister was in action on the country in the Birmingham & District League race at Abington Park, Northampton, finishing 5th.
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The final cross country event of 2018 was today’s National juvenile uneven ages championships and the national novice at a wet, cold, windy and muddy (real cross country!) Navan Racecourse.
The Clonliffe U/19 boys took pride of place today as they completed the set of national U/18, U/20 and now U/19 in three incredible weeks. From the off Efrem Gidey hit the front and although he sat in the pack for the opening 2k he soon took proceedings by the scruff of the neck and steady opened a gap that grew to 50 plus meters at the finish to take the coveted title. Behind him Jordan Byrne was putting in possibly his best ever race on the country to finish 19th, likewise having an absolute stormed was 22nd place finisher Stephen Cashin and the final scorer, recovering from a dodgy start was Ben Guiden who rallied to 27th place and took his 3rd national team gold in three weeks! These 4 were superbly backed up by Daniel Lacey and Ryan Sheridan. Both Jordan and Ben took inter county gold with Dublin.
The U/19 Girls team of Hannah Browne, Tess Loftus, Aimee Warren and Cliona Cooley found it a tough day but all finished as the team placed 7th.
Unluckiest team of the day were the U/17 boys who lost out on bronze on count back. Evan Foster had a superb race leading the team home with great efforts from Alex Murray, Callum Simpson, Dermot Buckley, Niall Carbery and Manny. Alex was on the Dublin team that took inter county silver.
Likewise the U/17 Girls found themselves in that unlucky 4th place after sterling runs by the whole team of Sarah Bateson, Aoife Hession, Alana Fitzsimons, Katie Halpin, and the Ellas Brown and Cooley. Both Sarah and Aoife won inter county bronze.
Great efforts also by the boys U/15 team of Sean Boylan,Jack Woods, Cillian Sherrin, Jacub Niedziolka, Andrew Gaffney and Ronan Donohue, Sean took inter county gold with Dublin.
Sorcha O’Connor was 42nd in the U/13 race where she was on the Dublin provincial team.
In the women’s novice championship it was great to see a full team lead home in around 21st place by Alannah Cooley after a super run. Great runs also by Ale Hernandez loving the Irish weather, ladies captain Orna McGinley was next in leading by example, Emer Brennan, Laura Kernan and Yvonne McDonagh also all put in gutsy runs.
Finally at the end of a long cold day the novice men where Sean Doran lead the team home after a fine run and took inter country silver for Dublin. Great runs also from Jarlath Jordan, Sean Carrig, Greg Hossenny, Michael Cassidy, Peter Bissett .
Full results not yet available but will be added later.
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It was a good day for Clonliffe Harriers in Abbotstown today for the Nationals with the juniors winning and taking home the Lar Byrne Cup, the U/18s also winning and some fine run in the senior men to see the team back on the podium, after some lean years, taking silver.
The first team in action was the boys U/14s where the team of Christin Finn, 46th, Cillian Keegan 47th, Jonathan Fitzsimons 95, Callum Maguire 137th and Alex O`Connor 154th placed 9th in their first national. Likewise the U/16 girls were taking in their first national and will benefit greatly from the experience. The team placing 11th: 70 Katie Halpin, 71 Aoife Hession, 78 Naoise Cullen, 94 Lara Gallagher, 95 Alana Fitzsimons, 99 Ella Cooley.
The U/16 boys were 12th. Niall Carbery had a particularly fine run to 26th (and won inter county gold for Dublin), 89 Alex Neuroth, 96 Jack Woods, 105 Ronan Donohue, 129 Andrew Gaffney.
In the combined women`s junior/U/18 Sarah Bateson finished like a train in an excellent 38th (27th U/18), Ale Harnandez 49th, Hannah Browne 53rd, Ella Brown 63rd (52nd U/18), Aimee Warren 70th, Cliona Cooley 89th with the team all running well to take 5th place.
The junior men justified the faith placed in them with really top notch runs. Sean O`Leary as always was in the mix from the off and finished an excellent 2nd, and booked his place on the Irish team for Euro Cross, Efrem Gidey battled gamely in 8th, next in two of our U/18 crop both putting in super efforts Daniel Stone 20th and Ben Guiden 23rd. These four combined brilliantly to win the junior title on 73 points to win by a massive 50 plus points. Next in Jarlath Jordan 34th, Jordan Byrne 37th, Daniel Lacey 56th, Stephen Cashin 61st, Alex Murray 62nd, Thomas Baltzar 85th, Ryan Sheridan 109th. There was double delight as the U/18 team of Stone 7th, Guiden 10th, Murray 34th and Daragh Carter 48th, Callum Simpson 50th and Baltzar 57th took National gold. Inter county Sean O`Leary, Efrem Gidey, Ben Guiden took junior gold for Dublin and in U/18 both Daniel Stone and Ben took gold for Dublin.
On then to the senior race where in truth the best we hoped for was maybe bronze, well than maybe bronze was turned into sterling silver by excellent run from the scoring 4 of Cathal Doyle 9th, and 3rd U/23, Euro Cross?, 10th the superb Colm Rooney, 19th Sergiu Ciobanu and 26th Jayme Rossister. Raheny made it three in a row lead home by a superb Kevin Dooney in 1st place, on 41 points, Clonliffe 64 and Clonmel AC 73. Other Clonliffe: 83rd Adam O`Brien, 84th Eoin Taggart, 89th Sean Doran and 95th Tom Sherlock.
It was an excellent day with big field in all races. The juniors can now look forward to the European Clubs in Portugal in early February, Sean O`Leary to Euro Cross and hopefully Cathal Doyle likewise. The senior team will also be galvanized and will look to mount a challenged in 2019. Rust never sleeps!
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The move is underway. With meticulous planning the tent team of Harkness, Bateson and Cooper got smartly from Santry to the National Cross Country course and before darkness fell mission accomplished. Ready for action tomorrow.
Please note that juvenile training is cancelled tomorrow.
Good luck to our teams tomorrow: U/14, 16 and 18 boys, U/16 and 18 girls, junior women and men and senior men. Nil desperandum.
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Yesterday in Madison, Wisconsin Australia`s Morgan McDonald won the NCAA Cross Country title for the Wisconsin Badgers. Clonliffe Harrier Mick Byrne is the head coach at Wisconsin and is Morgan`s coach.
(pictured, Morgan McDonald wins NCAA XC 17th Nov, 2018)
(pictured, Morgan McDonald no. 6, 2nd Morton Mile 12th July 2017)
In furtherance of the Clonliffe connection members may well recall Morgan, attired with bushy beard, finishing 2nd in the 2017 Morton Mile. He redshirted the 2017 campaign envisioning winning the NCAA individual title on his home turf at the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course during his last year of eligibility.
Everything he and The Prince hoped for worked to a dream yesterday as McDonald pulled away from top-ranked Grant Fisher of Stanford down the stretch to win the NCAA championship with the home crowd going absolutely wild.
“As soon as we thought that we might be hosting nationals when I was a sophomore, maybe even a freshman, this is something that we knew down the line might be an option,” said McDonald. “This was 100 percent the reason. This and we thought the team could be a bit better. It was all centered around this 2018 nationals held in Madison with a Badger crowd. It was all about that.”
“We decided at that time, that we would put all of our focus into today,” Wisconsin coach Mick Byrne said. “He started training May 1. To go through six months of training, as the months passed by, just mounting up to just trying to win this at home in front of this amazing crowd.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen an NCAA crowd like this. The numbers I don’t know, but incredible event. To do it at home is just amazing.”
Congratulations from all here in Santry.
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Incorporated into today’s Irwin Cup over 6,000m was the 2018 Clonliffe Harriers club cross country championship at Santry Demesne. The rain of yesterday continuing into today but it was still a grand day for the country with good underfoot conditions.
Some 50 starters took to the line for this great club event. The Irwin Cup is held in great esteem by the Harriers remembering a great Clonliffe athlete and, fittingly with this weekend being the 100th anniversary of the ending of the Great War, a war hero. Bertie Irwin was a Clonliffe national mile, 4 mile and cross country champion, 1920 Olympian and had been an aviator in the first world war. It was therefore fantastic to have such a turn out today.
The club championship for the Harry Cooney Cup, presented to the club a number of years ago by the family of the late former Clonliffe great, was one by one of the club’s fantastic crop of junior athletes, the 2018 All Ireland school’s champion, Efrem Gidey in 19.07. 2nd was Adam O’Brien who 6 days earlier was 6th scorer on the Clonliffe senior team that won the Dublin cross country and brought home the Padraig Keane cup, in memory of yet another Clonliffe legend, with Sean Carrig getting back to form a solid 3rd place.
The 2018 women’s champion for the Fred Connolly Trophy was another young athlete Alannah Cooley (24.13) with Aimee Ahern 2nd and Clodagh Moriarty 3rd.
Thanks to the officials and athletes for today. The results of the Irwin Cup to follow.
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Clonliffe Harriers play host to the Dublin Cross Country Championships this Sunday November 4th in Santry Demesne with Championship races for juvenile athletes from U/9 to U/19, junior athletes and senior athletes. The programme gets underway at 11 a.m. with the U/9 girls. The juvenile programme will then run as far as U/17 boys at 12.55 p.m. and then at 1.15 p.m. will see the U/19s incorporated with the juniors and then the senior races with the senior women racing over 6000m at 2.15 p.m. and then the senior men over 10,000m at 2.45 p.m.
A few important notes for all competitors and spectators:
Car-parking: Competitors and spectators are specifically requested to park within the confines of Morton Stadium. Fingal County Council who own Santry Demesne and allow the event to take place specifically request that no event parking take place in the park itself. The park is used by local people and people from further afield at weekends and Fingal are anxious not to interfere with their normal enjoyment of the park. If the stadium is full please be careful where you park as illegally parked cars in the Santry area may well be ticketed and removed by the authorities.
Track: the track in Morton Stadium is absolutely out of bounds for all cross country competitors. No warmups are permitted on the track or in the infield and any encroachment on the track is specifically prohibited by order of Morton Stadium. Morton Stadium are kind enough to allow the facility to be used as a base for the cross country and we appeal, therefore, to clubs and coaches to tell athletes in their charge not to encroach onto the track. Anyone encroaching onto the track with cross country spikes will do irreparable damage to the track surface.
Litter: thanks to the co-operation of Fingal County Council we have use of the park. All clubs are requested, therefore, to remove all litter from the park post event. Failure to do so will mean that the volunteers who will be on site from 8 a.m. erecting the course will then be there after dark cleaning up your athlete’s rubbish. Not the most pleasant of tasks and certainly not fair on the hard working volunteers. Clubs are requested please to do the right thing.
Members of the course building team are requested to assemble at 8 a.m. Clonliffe then have a requirement for volunteers to marshal the course. Please note that the people who would normally look after this will be looking after teams on the day so, therefore, the club needs others to step into the breach. Club members who are available are please requested to contact Noel Guiden on 087 9599 888. Marathon runners maybe you will not be running on Sunday and you can make yourself available from 10.30 a.m. Likewise parents of juvenile athletes please you might consider making yourself available for a few hours on Sunday. Anyone available please report to the Clonliffe clubhouse for assignment of duties at 10.30 a.m. but please do contact Noel Guiden on 087 9599 888 by text in advance with your name and the time you will be available from.
Timetable: 2018 DublinXCtimetable
Course map: Map Dublin Uneven Ages, Junior & Senior Cross Country Championships 2018
It’s looking like a quiet day as the Dublin City Marathon tomorrow takes centre stage. So far the only Clonliffe athlete to race this weekend was Sean Doran who placed 11th in the Leinster Novice Cross Country held in Navan. Updates if any later.
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Clonliffe in association with Fingal County Council will host the Dublin Cross Country Championships in Santry Demsene on Sunday November 4th .This is a championship day for all Dublin clubs from juvenile up to senior. The Championships will get underway at 11 a.m. with the U/9 Dublin Championships and conclude with the senior men’s race later in the afternoon.
Course builders will be required from 8 a.m. on the morning, however, after that we will need the best part of 20 club members/parents of club members to help out with officiating and manning of the course. Please bear in mind that many of the people who would normally attend to these duties are involved with coaching of teams taking part in the event so will not be available for these duties. The club, therefore, appeals to members to step into the breach.
Anyone available please text Noel Guiden 087 9599 888 as soon as possible.
The people who can help out with officiating will be needed from 10 a.m. until probably 3 p.m. – obviously if we have sufficient numbers we can split this into two shifts.
Your assistance on the day would be greatly appreciated by all.
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The Dublin Novice Cross Country takes place in the Phoenix Park tomorrow afternoon. Their are good teams entered for both men & women. The men`s team includes Sean O`Leary who had a fine run in Blackrock, County Louth two weeks back and the women`s Alannah Cooley. The Novice women run over 4000m with a 1.45pm start, please be there in plenty of time as per captain`s instructions while the men race at 2.15pm, 6000m, to meet at 1.00pm. The championships are held on the Magazine Fort area of the Park, the County Board have asked that all use the official car parks only, and care share if possible. The championships are preceded by the latest round in the Dublin Juvenile Cross Country league.
In the Saturday round up the only Clonliffe athlete we are aware of who raced today was David Brady 11th in the Simon 5 Mile (also in the Park) in 30.00.
