After the heroics of the clubs track and field athletes over the course of the weekend, today it was the turn of the club’s hardly cross country athletes to get in on the act. Westport House, Co Mayo, was the venue for the national Masters and intermediate cross country championships. Heading out West were the master men M35 plus cross country team, and it was indeed a crack squad featuring both Colm Rooney and Sergiu Ciobanu, this team had taken national cross country silver 2024 and were determined to go one better this time out. Likewise the intermediate women’s cross country team came with the goal of upgrading their 2024 silver to 2025 gold.
Both objectives were achieved and for good measure the intermediate men took silver.
It was the master men who were 1st in action with Colm Rooney as relentless today as he was in the Dublin masters, the class of the field as he won the national masters title. Next in was the ultra reliable Sergiu Ciobanu 7th, and then “the Brothers” Cathal McHale 14th and Karl Nolan 16th to win team gold. 38th points for Clonliffe, 49 Rathfarnham and in 3rd East Cork 76. Great runs also from Tom Sherlock 19th, Kevin O’Connor 33rd, 4th M50, Mick McMahon 71st and Niall Markey 158th.
For good measure inter county gold went to Colm, Sergiu and Cathal, a Mayo man finally bringing home an Ireland Inter county winners medal!
The intermediate women have had this race very much in mind for the past 6 months and have been showing very good form, with a particularly fine win in the Dublin intermediate held in St Anne’s Park, Raheny at the start of January. Today they well and truly delivered. The team was spearhead by the Dynamic Duo, Helena Butterly who went for it from the gun and never looked back taking gold, and Niamh Kelly, as per Dublins was an excellent 2nd. Then after an outstanding run Jools Hughes 5th and Julie Larkin 9th. With all 4 in the top 10 gold was secured with 17th points, 2nd Liffey Valley 43 and SportsWorld 3rd. The rest of the team were excellent: 13th Orna McGinley, 19th Katie Halpin and 26th Chloe Heaslip.
Helena, Niamh, Jools and Julie also bagged inter county gold for Dublin.
Finally it was the intermediate men. Last year the Clonliffe intermediate men had won the title, thereby ruling several the scoring 4 out, and thus, not unexpectedly, this year’s team was not quite as strong. Still the guys really put in an outstanding shift lead by Ben Guiden who had a brilliant run in 6th. Next in after his best ever cross country race was Sean Doran in 9th, Eoin Maguire took 17th and, with a real gutsey run, Cillian Keegan 23rd, the team took silver behind Ennis TC and a single point ahead of Castlegar. Ben, Sean and Eoin took inter county gold and leave the intermediate ranks for good. Great back up from the rest of the team Daragh Carter 24th, Ronan Donohue 27th, Ian McAlweeney 28th and Harry Davies 35th.
So medals glore for the teams as it proved to be another great day for club in what has been already a very positive start to 2025.
This weekend has been particularly heartening with the track and field team yesterday winning the national indoor league for the 3rd year on the bounce, an excellent performance by the women’s team in 4th position and of course Clonliffe Olympians Cathal Doyle and Marcus Lawler set a new club records. It’s been some weekend!
Photos here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/146364500@N04/albums/72177720323732873/