All-Ireland (Even) X-country champs

In a big weekend for local athletics, while the N. Ireland 10k championships were being staged in Belfast, up in the North West the All-Ireland senior and junior (even) age-group cross-country championships were being held in the Maiden City. The races featured a number of City of Lisburn athletes who had qualified via the recent provincial championships at Jordanstown either as individuals or as part of their club or county teams. Conditions were a wee bit wintry in Belfast but up in L’derry were Arctic with the grounds of Gransha Hospital covered by snow which fell heavily throughout much of the race programme.

Ciara Mageean was one of the stars of the show with a 30 second winning margin in the U20 girls 4k race. This secures her an automatic qualification spot for the Irish team for the Euro cross-country championships in Portugal in December where she’ll be looking for her first major international championship cross-country medal to go with those already won on the track.

In the U12 girls Rebekah Douglas and Kate Gourley will have gained from the experience, finishing 35th and 37th respectively. Rebekah was in fact the first N. Ireland athlete home in that race.

The U14 girls raced over 3k and Zoe Carruthers was first home of the City of Lisburn squad in 32nd place. This left her as a scoring member of the Ulster and Antrim teams which both finished just one place outside the medals in the regional and county scoring. Madison Bowyer definitely ran, finishing just a few places behind Zoe although she was strangely missing from the official results. Meanwhile Natalie Fair, Caitlin Lyness and Lauren Gourley were the other members of the Lisburn squad who combined to finish in a creditable 10th place in the club team event.

Jonathan Whan also came home with an All-Ireland gold medal. He was 14th in the Boys U14 3k race which meant that he was 2nd scorer in the Antrim team which took team gold and the Ulster regional team which was second – a great day’s work.

Finally, Rebecca Harvey ran well for 28th in the girls U16 4k event.

Well done to all medal-winners and good luck to Ciara for the European championships!