Maria McCarthy leads Farranfore Maine Valley women to gold medal at Munster Cross-Country
Tessa Dennison
KERRY athletes had great success at the Munster Juvenile Uneven age and Senior Cross-Country Championships in Gallbally, Co Tipperary last Sunday. The heavy rain of the previous two days contributed to the ground being very heavy underfoot, but the course was relatively flat and fine weather on the day improved the conditions slightly.
Maria McCarthy (Farranfore Maine Valley) finished in third place in the senior women’s 8,000m race, leading her team to gold medal position. Mary Daly – who was competing for the first time at Munster level, Catriona Barry and Grainne Tierney completed the team.
Kerry also scooped the silver team medals thanks to the efforts of the An Riocht ladies team of Niamh O’Sullivan, Sharon Cahill, Majella Diskin and Deirdre Enright. Maria, Niamh, Mary and Sharon also won silver county medals. In the men’s 10k race Kerry were represented by Martin Dineen (An Riocht) and George McCarthy (Farranfore Maine Valley).
There were two top three finishers in the juvenile races, two of them courtesy of Kenmare AC with Luke Merrigan winning the U-9 boys race and Alyce O’Connor finishing second in U-17 girls event. Farranfore’s Shauna McCarthy was third in the U-13 girl’s race. Other Kerry youngsters who competed well and have made the Munster team for the national finals are Jessie Lynch (Farranfore Maine Valley) 5th U-9 girls; Ben Murphy (Gneeveguilla) 11th U-15 boys; Oisin Spillane (Tralee Harriers) 12th U-17 boys and Aoife Mahony (Lios Tuathail) 9th U-19 girls.
There was a great turn out at the An Riocht track on Sunday for the Munster jumps workshop that attracted athletes from across the county. The workshop which was facilitated by Munster Athletics was run in conjunction with the regular Kerry Performance Squad which takes place every Sunday from 11am to 1pm and focused on long jump, triple jump and high jump.