Plenty of podium places for St Peter’s
ALTHOUGH other sporting activities fell foul to the inclement weather as ever the hardy Cross Country athletes prevailed.
Day two of the Louth Cross Country Championships took place at St Fechin’s GAA club when the Intermediate races for both men and women and the uneven ages for the juveniles.
The St Peters Club had a group of brave young athletes that wouldn’t allow rain or muck stop them in what was a very enjoyable and successful event for the club.
The event was being hosted by Aces and great credit must go to them for a great event. The boys and girls under 15 teams both enjoyed podium finishes with the girls winning silver and boys taking the bronze.
Niamh Brady led the girls team home with a fine run to win individual silver, Ellie Smyth and Isabeal Fitzpatrick both battled their way through the tough course to secure the team silver.
Cian Gorham led the boys team to the bronze team medal.
Cian ran really well and although the conditions didn’t suit the speedy runners Cian dug deep and held on to an individual silver. Sean Allen who had rediscovered his love of athletics after a break led the race in the very early stages which was encouraging to see and with his return to training he will improve.
The last scorer on the team was Conor Litchfield, Conor deserves much credit for running this race as he wouldn’t be a lover of the Cross Country but braved the conditions so that his club would have full team and really deserved his championship medal.
The boys and girls Under 13 races both had St Peters Athletes on the podium with both Dearbhla Allen and Harry O’Reilly winning silver.
Dearbhla has really enjoyed a fantastic year and continues to make massive improvements, Harry had another strong run and was almost joined on the podium following a very brave run by Ben McKeown who narrowly missed out on a podium finish when he finished fourth.
Ben should take real encouragement from his brilliant run. Donacha Reidy had a very strong run in the boys under eleven race and was involved in the business end of the race right from the off, the pace of the race was fast especially considering the under foot conditions and Donacha did really well and won himself a well earned bronze medal.
Both Liam McKeown and Cian Smyth moved up an age to run this race and both did exceptionally well with both finishing well. In the girls under eleven race the club had a team that packed well but were unfortunate not to medal, the team was led home by Hannah O’Reilly and then three of the girls came across the line together with Niamh Allen, Deirbhile Morgan and Grace Carey finishing strong.
The St Peters club had three athletes in the boys under 9. Killian McKeown made a great late surge to pass a number of athletes to secure the last of the ten individual medals, Conor Preston had a great run in his first Cross Country race as did Riley Byrne had a great start to his first race only to lose a shoe, replace the shoe and sprint to the finish.
The first athlete in action was Caoimha Morgan who had a great run in the girls under 9 as she battled her way through a large amount of athlete to narrowly miss out on a medal.
The next event in the Cross Country season is the Leinster Championships for even ages which will take place on Saturday the 26th of October in Gowran Kilkenny.