St Peter’s athletes perform well in cross country
ON Saturday last the St Peter’s club athletes travelled to Tyrellstown outside Mullingar to take part in the Leinster Cross Country Championships for even ages.
The club had athletes compete in two of the races both in the under twelve age category.
Niamh Brady had her best distance race of the year and put her earlier season woes behind her and produced an excellent performance to finish in sixth place and more importantly qualified for the National Championships.
Niamh also led home the Louth County team to a fourth place finish and qualifies the county team for the National Championships also.
The county team had three St Peter’s athletes as Julie McLoughlin ran a great race to finish 36th and be the fourth scorer on the Louth team and Ellie Smyth who is still under eleven finished in 56th and was the sixth scorer on the Louth team.
It’s a great feat for the St Peter’s club to have three athletes on a county team of six and also a great achievement to have three athletes taking part in the upcoming National Championships.
Unfortunately the boys under twelve athletes didn’t enjoy the same fortunes.
Sean Allen was the first of the club athletes to finish but a below par performance had Sean finish in 18th place which was unfortunate as Sean had shown signs recently that is form was returning, however he picked up a bug during the week and is energy levels didn’t appear to be what they usually are.
Mark Litchfield who was experiencing his first provincial Cross Country championship will have learned from the experience and finished in 57th place with the ever reliable Cian Loy close behind in 60th.
Padraig Tinnelly, who was also running his first Leinster Championship finished just behind the two boys with a 62nd place finish which will stand him in good stead for the upcoming under eleven championship in two weeks.
Dean Murtagh also ran really well to finish well up the massive field of competitors. The club team finished in seventh place and the Louth team which contained three St Peters athletes finished in 5th place just narrowly missing out on a place in the National event in November .