As most of you are aware perhaps the most important set of races in the cross country calendar are fast approaching. This Sunday the Phoenix Park is holding the Inter Club Cross Country Championship of Ireland. DSD have teams (named below) representing them in all categories and will be once again chasing the magic four titles that was won for the first time in AAI history a few years ago.

Supporters are requested to cheer on our teams and with the race being held so close to home a good turn-out is expected to see the first race kick-off at 1300. 

As usual, there will be a meal to celebrate another highly successful cross country held after the race and of course all competing athletes will be paid for (details below).

We wish all our athletes the very best of luck and expect to see you all afterwards.

Congratulations to David Gillick, Deirdre Ryan, Hazel Murphy and Nick Hogan who have all gained selection for the World Indoor Athletics Championships to be held in Doha, Qatar from 12th - 14th March! David will compete in the 400m and the 4x400m; Nick goes in the 4x400; Hazel runs in the 3,000m and Deirdre goes in the high jump! It is great to see the club being represented in such a variety of events, from sprints through middle distance, to jumps! DSD is also well represented on the Managment side of things, with both coaches travelling (Lucy Moore & Jim Kidd) also being from the club!

Good luck to everyone in Doha!

Congratulations to Deirdre Ryan on her High Jump win of 1.90 in the French National Championships, and to Linda Byrne who finished 4th in the IAAF Eurocross in Diekirch with a time of 17.18. 

Well done also to Hazel Murphy on her selection for World Indoor Championships in Doha, and to Claire Bergin on her great performance at the Winter Olympics in Canada, where, with her team mate, Aoife Hoey, they finished in 17th place.

There were good performances also from our Juveniles at Rás No hEireann and at Dublin Indoor Championships, details of which will follow later. 

There were some excellent results achieved by the large contingent of DSD athletes who travelled to Roscommon which saw a number of individual and team medals being won.

David Gillick has produced an amazing performance at the Aviva Grand Prix today to win the 400m, equalling his own Irish Indoor Record of 45.52 second. During an interview after the race he said "if I had of known how fast the race was I would have dipped to break the National Record." and also said hello to all those back home in Ballinteer. This performance comes only 3 weeks before the World Indoors and is a great indicator that there’s still more to come.

Hazel Murphy led the DSD contingent in the UK World Championship Trials in Sheffield over the weekend! She had a gutsy run to win in a personal best time - but even better than that - her 9:02.06 was within the qualifying standard for the World Indoor Championships in Doha next month! Fantastic news! Ava Hutchinson was 6th in the same race, in a new PB of 9:14.80. Also in the medals was DSD's Deirdre Ryan, getting the bronze in the high jump, clearing 1.81m. Nick Hogan ran within himself to qualify for the semi finals in the 400m but unfortunately was injured in the semis.

Meanwhile. down at Pickett's Lock in London, our masters athletes were competing in the final warm up event before their World Championships in Canada next month. Kevin Byrne had a good win in the M35 high jump, clearing 1.65m. He also placed in the long jump and 60m hurdles. Lucy Moore won the W50 high jump and was 3rd in the shot putt.

Well done to our third medalist at Nationals - Patrick (Patch) Phelan, who won bronze in the men's 200m in 22.34 secs. This completed a long weekend of sprinting for Patch, who featured on RTE's coverage of the event this evening!

The next indoor action will be this weekend, in Sheffield for our Senior athletes and in London for the Masters. Good luck to everyone competing!