With thanks to Michael Cornyn for this report…
A 60+ Irish team headed to the European Indoor & Cross Country championships on Monday 29th March in Ancona, Italy. With over 5,000 competitors from 34 countries this was one of the biggest European competitions so far.
There were some brilliant Irish performances during the week with Joe Gough winning gold in the M60 800m in a time of 2min16sec. Brian Lynch from Dundalk was the star performer winning Gold in the M60 3,000 & then on Saturday winning the M60 1500m in a time of 4min 42 sec with Joe Gough a great 4th. Denise Toner won the W35 1500m in some style winning by over 50 meters.
The M50 cross country team was dealt a big blow when our current European M50 cross country individual champion Mick Traynor was ruled out the week before with injury. Michael had been unwell for the last week with a sinus infection and had not trained for 5 days but decided to fly out on the Friday morning with the hope that by Sunday he would be ok to run the 5k cross country. I met up with my team mates on Saturday morning and did a light run on the beach near Ancona but was still unsure how the run would go the next morning with an early 11.15 (10.15 Irish time) race start.
The race was combined of age groups M45, M50 & M55 and the Irish team of Paul Cowhie, Civil Service AC. Tom O’Connor, Liffey Valley AC & myself, Michael Cornyn, Dunboyne AC only held very slender hopes of a team medal without their Captain Mick Traynor, as Tom was moving down from the M55 category to make up the team & I was in my last few weeks in M50, before moving into the M55 category.
As usual at these championships the race was fast and furious up front with Paul & Tom tucked in behind the leaders on the first lap of 4. They both continued to run strongly with myself running in the middle of the 150 strong field. All three of us continued to fight for every place as the race unfolded and particularly on the finishing times as the three combined times would make up the team results and finishing position for the team. This was a tough course with four hills, two of which were particularly difficult.
Paul Cowhie ran an excellent race finishing 11th with Tom O’Connor finishing not far behind and myself in 28th place. Then it was the anxious wait for the team results. Looking at the individual results it looked like Italy had won the team with Spain 2nd, but 3rd was not clear.
After an hour the team results were put up on line and to our disappointment Germany had been given the 3rd spot. I dropped Tom to the train station and while taking some pictures of Ancona harbour got a phone call from Mick Traynor back in Dublin. Mick had worked out all the times and reckoned that the Irish team had beaten Germany by 21 seconds, a combined time of 59.50 to Germany’s 1.01.00 which meant that the Irish team had won the bronze medals.
As the team manager had already left for home I rushed back to the technical area in the Stadium and questioned the results of the team competition for the M50 cross country. After some deliberation the Irish team were declared European Bronze medallists and were presented with their medals a short time later.
There was great celebration as this was the first European medal for Paul Cowhie and at the same time the Irish O35 4x200m relay team were presented with their bronze team medals and they also broke the existing Irish record (which I had been part of in Budapest two years ago).
A good night was had by all that night in the Donegal Irish pub in the centre of Ancona.
The sixty-strong Irish team won a total of 26 medals, 10 gold ,7 silver and 9 bronze and finished 11th country in the medal table overall out of the 34 countries competing.
