Senior Men win Leinster C.C. Title!

Kilbeggan racecourse provided the perfect venue for the Dublin and Leinster senior cross country championships this weekend. After a last-minute cancellation of the Dublin championships last week, Athletics Leinster came to the rescue and hosted a combined Dublin and Leinster Championship race on an unusually dry and sunny November day.

DSD’s numbers were depleted due to the last-minute changes in competition dates, but on the senior women’s side, the ever-reliable Maria McCambridge lined out against a strong field of athletes. Maria, as always, put up a strong fight against some of the up-and-coming stars of the next generation finishing in an impressive 10^th place overall and being a scoring member of the Dublin team, who won the inter-county team event.

In the girls combined u19 & u20 race, the DSD team of Lily Kate McCarthy, Isabella Prina-Mello and Sadhbh Hassett finished 3^rd in the u19 Leinster team event and 2^nd in the Dublin team race (with the addition of Olivia Tobin as a 4^th scorer for Dublins).

The u19 & u20 boys race saw the team of Seán Healy, Jake Mathews, Andrew Gillart, Lochlann Hannon, Tadhg Bartelink and Fionn Neville finish just outside the medals, with the team finishing in 4^th place in the Dublin championships.

The final race of the day brought most success with our senior men’s team toeing the line with high expectations of being in the mix at the business end of affairs over the gruelling 9km course. Éanna Ó’Brádaigh, Killian Mooney and Aaron Donnelly were in touch with the leaders from early on with John Neviile, Andrew McGilton and Oscar Lubliner not far behind. The 9km course took its toll on everyone and at the front of the race it took a nail-biting sprint finish between Pierre Murchan of DCH and Colm Rooney of Clonliffe, to decide who would take the individual title – Rooney edging it by a few seconds.

Despite losing a few positions on the last lap, Éanna managed a solid 8^th position overall, and was 2^nd U23 in the Leinster championship. Killian and Aaron were close behind, finishing 11^th and 13^th, respectively, with John closing out the DSD scoring in 31^st place. Supported by Andrew in 36^th and Oscar in 38^th, the DSD team finished in 2^nd place behind Clonliffe after a solid team performance all round. Surprisingly, after finishing the race, the team were informed that they had actually won the Leinster title, as not all Dublin clubs had entered their teams into the Leinster event. Éanna and Killian were also scoring members of the Dublin team who won the inter-county team event. A solid day of racing to test out the form ahead of the national senior championships in two weeks – well done to all!

(Thanks to Robert Corbally for report)

Extra photos from Sharon: