(With thanks to Eimear English for this report)
It was a bright but bitterly cold day with chilling winds as the Dunboyne Senior teams descended on Adamstown County Wexford for the Leinster cross country championships. As the athletes took to the course for some warm up laps they could see that the ground underfoot was going to be hard work, thick mud being the predominant feature of the course. Well worn in from the juvenile races, it was clear it was a course that would test the strength of all of the athletes.
The senior women lined up first with all of the Dunboyne ladies running strong races, they more than held their own in the stacked field of 53. First in for Dunboyne AC was Laura Buckley who is going from strength to strength this year. She battled from the start with the best and she stormed in to the finish an excellent 4th place. Jane Bandila finished next in a superb 12th place. With Eva McNelis and Claire Ní Fhaircheallaigh finishing 25th and 30th respectively, they had done enough to secure hard earned bronze team medals for Dunboyne AC.
The Dunboyne men were up next and set out for a 7 lap 10k course in a large field of 87 seniors. Some athletes actually losing footing and footwear completely is testament to how tough this course really was, but the Dunboyne boys kept both, just about. First home for the Dunboyne team was no surprise, Rory Kavanagh who is training hard and warming up nicely this season finished a fine 38th. Gerard Martin having only completed a superb Dublin city marathon two weeks previous was next in, Gerard who is a complete newbie to the cross country scene, made an excellent debut in an extremely competitive race. With a sprint finish he came in 53rd and is certainly one to watch in the future. Next in was Gerry O’Reilly who, as always, ran a smart and steady race finishing 61st. The fourth man in for the team was Warren McIntyre. He ran a strong race throughout but really got into his stride as the race went on. While he didn’t quite manage to chase down his club mate he managed to move up the field 8 places in his final lap to finish 63rd. Yet another successful day at the races for Dunboyne Athletic Club.
