British and Irish 'Worlds' teams announced...
Following the selection races a few weeks back, both the GB and Ireland teams have been announced to compete at the forthcoming World Mountain Running Champs in Slovenia on September the 5th. As far as the GB team senior men are concerned it’s pretty much the first 6 from the trial
The same goes for the women, with the first three going and Vicki Wilkinson being added as the fourth member, due to her considerable prowess in championship mountain races, no doubt. The juniors are interesting as Catriona Buchanan is added, having not run the trial, however there is no place for (arguably) the best male junior mountain runner in the UK right now, Robbie Simpson.
Robbie did not travel to Snowdon for the trial, racing at the Glenshee 9 instead, and it looks like this has gone against the Deeside runner in the selection process. Poor decision in the view of MST. Still, trial winner Dewi Griffiths should be a great leader of the GB youngsters, having won the trial by a huge margin and subsequently has posted a 30:19 track 10k – so the speed is there too…
Dewi Griffiths - surely a future mountain star
Full GB & NI team
Senior Men
Tom Cornthwaite (Paul Dugdale)
John Brown
James McMullan (Robin Dixon)
Rob Samuel
Gareth Raven (Paul Roden)
Prasad Prasad
Reserve Orlando Edwards (Frank Horwill)
Senior Women
Olivia Walwyn (Don Nichol)
Anna Lupton (Self Coached)
Kate Goodhead
Victoria Wilkinson (Bashir Hussain)
Reserve – Sula Young
Junior Men
Dewi Griffiths
Alexander Hendry (Derek Easton)
Joe Morwood
Michael Kallenberg (Ken Evans)
Reserve Jamie Stevenson
Junior Women
Becky Lambson
Hannah Bateson (Bill Foster)
Catriona Buchanan (Derek Easton)
Reserve – Beckie Taylor
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Irish team for the World’s selected (by Rene Borg)
Irish High Performance Officer showed his hand this morning confirming the names of the selected athletes. With John Heneghan being pre-selected, the top-5 senior male finishers from the trial race at Djouce were expected to be selected and there were no surprises as Brian McMahon will be joined by Rathfarnham trio Barry Minnock, Eoin Flynn and Peter O’Farrell and Horwich Harriers James Kevan.
Likewise, there were no major surprises in the other categories were the top-triallists made it with only Emmett Jennings having been preselected for the junior men’s.
Brian MacMahon is chased by Barry Minnock
Full Irish team:
Senior men
Brian MacMahon (Clonliffe)
Barry Minnock (Rathfarnham)
Eoin Flynn (Rathfarnham)
Peter O’Farrell (Rathfarnham)
James Kevan (Horwich RMI)
John Heneghan (Clonliffe)
Senior women
Sharon Bird (North Belfast)
Karen Alexander (Sperrin Harriers)
Kate O’Neill (Metro St. Brigid’s)
Sarah Mulligan (DSD)
Junior women
Catherina Mullen (Shercock)
Niamh Denny (DSD)
Sinead Cronin (Celtic DCH)
Junior men
James Speight (Omagh Harriers)
James Egan (DSD)
John Murphy (Gowran)
Emmet Jennings (DSD)
Managers
Ryan Montgomery (AAI)
Gemma Denny (DSD)
Gerry Brady (Clonliffe)
