The UnEven Age, Senior Cross Cross Country championships took place in Carrigadrohid, West Cork on October 11th 2015. The championships were hosted by West Muskery AC with the kind permission of Mr. Gus Murphy. It was a very well laid our course over what can be described as a very challenging course split over two loops, one short 500m metre loop and an outer loop of 1500m. In contrast to last weeks cross country weather , the West Cork weather presented all with a lovely sunny day with smiles all round.

The women’s senior race was the first race of the day with Carmel Crowley running a strong race to finish in 9th place.

The U9’s were the first of the juveniles in action. This was the first county cross country competiton for these young athletes. The Girls U9 team of Orlaith Deasy, Doireann Kelly, Orla Ryan, Natalia Dawidowucz, Aoife Callan and Corelle Chappen ran a great team race to take the county team title. The Boys U9 team of Cormac O Flynn, Eoin O Callaghan, Geln de Burca, Sean Hales, Dylan Looney, Jack Twoney, Ryan O Donaghue maintained the high standard that the girls set also winning the 1st place county team title. Eoin led the team home winning himself an individual 6th place medal.

The Girls and Boys U11 team had 1500m to run over the challenging outer loop which was a good test for these young athletes. In the Girls U11 team of  Ciara O’Sullivan, Ciara White, Niamh Quinn, Aoibhinn Cotter, Molly O Callaghan  and Amy McCarthy  all ran very well to win 3rd county team prize. Amy also won an individual medal by finishing in 6th place.  The Boys U11 team of Sean Deasy, Joseph Buttimer,  Daire Walsh, Dara Ryan and Ciaran Brady ran a competitive team race and were unlucky to finish just outside of the team medals.

With some late and valuable substitutes, the U13 Girls team managed have a team of 4 athletes ( Nicola Tuthil, Ellen Murphy, Clare Flynn and Amy O Donoghue )  competing over the 2500m course. They all ran a great team race and won a very worthy 2nd county team place. Nicola also won a 6th place individual medal. Again with the Boys U13 team we had just the four athletes competing ( Keelan Crowley, Ruairi Harrington, Callum McCourt and Rory Desmond) but that  may have just made them more focussed as they took the 1st place county team prize. Keelan led the team home winning an individual 5th place medal.

The Girls U15 team of Michelle O’Dononvan,  Grainne Mulcahy and Olivia Tuthil competed over a 3500m course and they all ran very well with Grainne winning an individual medal finishing in 5th place. Niall Desmond was our sole competitor in the Boys U15 race, competing out of age and finishing in a very worthy 10th place. Similar to Niall, Naoise O’Fhaitheartaigh competed out of age in the U17 Boys race and he finished in a very strong 3rd place  over a 5000m course. This was an excellent result for Naoise.

There was an open U19 race and Fiona Everard and Dylan O’Connor competed in this event. Fiona took control of her race from the start and progressively extended her lead over the 4000m race. She won by very a comfortable margin. Dylan had 6000m to complete and he was always challenging for the top positions and he finished in a very worthy 3rd place.

Again all our competitors should be very happy with their performances today.

Thanks to all who helped and supported the athletes today.

Report by Tom Laffan