In recent years Athlone Institute of Technology has replaced Mosney as the home of the National Community Games finals, a happy home for Dunboyne AC in recent years, with 2016 being no exception. August 13th/14th, the first weekend of the Community Games Festival saw our club members in action in various Cross Country competitions, and to put added pressure on Sarah Tracey in Rio as our younger stars came home with a hoard of medals.
The early part of day was taken up with heats of the under 12 and under 14 Inter County where the female contingent of the Juvenile and Fit for Youth sections were well represented. We had three athletes, namely Rachael Norman, Holly Conlon and Kayla Ryan in the Meath under 12 girls Cross Country Relay team, where there were 400m and 600m legs to be ran. This talent bunch qualified from the heats for Sunday’s final with ease.
The heat draw for the under 14 girls relay competition could not have gone any worse for Meath where Anna Griffin and Sarah Magee were in action, the heat having what would turn out to be the first four placed teams in the final. The Dunboyne girls just on with the task in front of them and came home fifth in their heat, showing positive attitudes in post race post mortems, this will make them stronger in the future.
Last race on Saturday Ross Lyons, Doireann Ni Fhlatharta and Abigail Knox were team-mates on the under 13 Meath Cross Country team along with athletes from the four corners of county, where boys and girls ran and scored together as part of the one team in a very unique competition, have a very fast 1200m grass course to manoeuvre. Ross was very unlucky not to win an individual medal as he was first boy home for the Royal outfit, closely followed home by Doireann as she claimed silver in the individual girls section of this race. Abigail was not there to make up the numbers and played her part as she was a team scorer where the top four boys and top four girls make up the county’s total. After a long wait, a strong Meath team learnt that they were pipped by County Clare for Gold, but were deserving of silver after a master-class performance.
Sunday was not long coming around for what was now a very nervous troop of under 12 girls. With a talented Skyrne athlete leading the quartet off on leg one, the last three legs were left for the Dunboyne trio to hold onto a medal position. Both Rachael and Kayla ran fantastically in their legs leaving added pressure on Holly to hold the team’s position for the last 400m , and she did not disappoint our very vocal entourage as they screamed her all home to the finish line as they went on to claim bronze. These girl left it all out on the course, it took them several minutes to muster up the energy to celebrate, but they shone on what was otherwise a dull day in the midlands.
Well done to all.
