Irish World Trials at Crone Wood
Sharon Bird at the Irish Trials
What do Snowdon and Djouce have in common? We’ll, this weekend, both where the tasks to be overcome successfully for those with international aspirations in Britain and Ireland, respectively.
Four different distances had been marked out for the senior men, the senior women and junior men, the junior women and U16 boys, and the U16 girls who were running for qualification to the British and Irish Under-18 international.
Early in the day, Dundrum South Dublin dominated the U16 women’s race where Clare McCarthy in particular ran well: “Clare McCarthy had an excellent run, in her first non-schools mountain race, to win by one minute and 41 seconds from Sorcha Humphreys. She was well up among the junior and senior women when she finished.” (Gerry Brady).
Catherina Mullen, Shercock, who had just won her first mountain race in Mullaghmeen recently won the junior women’s ahead of the more familiar faces of Niamh Denny, DSD, and Sinead Cronin, Celtic DCH.
The senior women continued racing until the foot of the final 800m rocky climb to Djouce summit together with the junior men. Gerry Brady sums up:
Sharon Bird (North Belfast) came through the field to overhaul Karen Alexander (Sperrin Harriers) to win the women’s race. Helen White (Sportsworld) was third followed by Kate O’Neill (Metro St. Brigid’s) and newcomer Sarah Mulligan (DSD).
James Speight (Omagh Harriers) took the junior men’s race from James Egan (DSD) and first-timer John Murphy (Gowran). Stephen Gibney (DSD) was next followed by James Griffin (St. Laurence O’Toole).
To finish the day, the senior men’s event saw a field of thirty runners set off for the top of Djouce. The first half of the route (used for the shorter courses too) featured particularly gruelling ascent grades that had large parts of the field running in tight formation until things levelled off once out of Crone Wood.
Brian MacMahon is chased by Barry Minnock
Gerry Brady describes how things progressed from there:
Brian MacMahon (Clonliffe) had a tremendous climb from the Dargle to the summit of Djouce to win the inter-counties championships in a very fast time of 33:30 for a tough 6 km course. Barry Minnock (Rathfarnham) made a welcome return to the hills (and to international duty) to finish in second. Eoin Flynn (Rathfarnham) finished a close third in his first mountain race from a strong field. Peter O’Farrell (Rathfarnham) is back in flight with an excellent fourth ahead of former British under 23 champion James Kevan (Horwich RMI) and Aengus Burke (North Laois).
The day finished with more drama when a tired runner had to be helped off the mountain and attended to by mountain rescue. In the Inter-Counties Championship, Dublin took double-honours in the men’s’ and ladies’ respectively.
Full results and pictures at IMRA. Separate results also online for the Junior Girls and U16 men.
