What a great spectacle for those who ventured out to the Dublin Even XC championships at the hugely impressive National Sports Campus facility in Abbotstown, West Dublin. The event was also the curtain raiser for the Autumn Open Cross Country Festival. The course was set up hard but fair with underfoot conditions challenging and in particular down at the far end of the course where the long drag back up was accompanied with typical XC terrain!! In the middle of it all, it was another fine day for our athletes. Autumn and the XC season are well and truly here….

Congratulations to Sarah Healy (U16 girls) on a masterful display and taking yet another Dublin title. Sarah took up the running very early on and showed her undoubted class in taking a convincing victory. It was the ideal preparation in advance of the All Ireland’s which will be held on the same course in late November.

Our younger squads were also in fine form with the both the Girls & Boys U10 teams taking silver. In the case of our girl’s, they tied with the winning team but lost out on individual positioning. Still this is a great showing from both squads on a very challenging course. The teams were as follows:

U10 Girls

U10 Holly O’Brien 2007 – 4^th (individual medal)

U10 Abbie O’Connor 2007 – 5^th (individual medal)

U10 Rachel O’Brien 2007 – 6^th (individual medal)
U10 Julia Holmes 2007 – 39^th

U10 Francesca Comer 2007

U10 Sophie Curtin 2007

U10 Boys

U10 David McMahon 2007 – 9^th (individual medal)

U10 Ben McClenaghan 2007 – 12^th (individual medal)

U10 Mark Fitzgerald 2007 – 16^th 

U10 Ruben Marnell 2008- 24th

U10 Jack Mulsow 2007 

U10 Killian Thornton 2007

U10 David Curran 2007

The Girls & Boys U12 squads were also in action and once again we had some fine displays with the boy’s team taking a well-deserved silver medal in the Team event. This gets them full entry in to the Nationals. The girls were unlucky not to medal but had a very enjoyable outing none the less. The squads were as follows: Boys– Robert O’Brien, Ziyad Omar, Paddy Buckley, Tim O’Sullivan, Luke Fitzgerald, Oscar Canavan, Shane Van Zuydam, Killian Curran, Niall O’Shea, Sean O’Riagain, Luke Moraghan & Jack Fairmaner.

The girl’s squad was: Hannah O’Brien, Laura Hegarty, Sophie Maher, Niamh Walsh, Ella Cowman, Annalie McMahon & Alexandra Brown.

In the boys U14 race, James O’Brien was running up a year and had a fine 10^th place which qualifies him for the Dublin County/ Provincial teams at the Nationals. A great reward and bonus for James. Doug Walshe was also running up a year but had to pull out due to injury. Spare a thought for Jordan Mynes- he would have been widely tipped to win the U14 boys race but was battling with an injury all week, which flared up again during the race and it was a testimony to him that he refused to pull out. He will have better days ahead.

In the Boys U16, Oisin Kelly, continues his steady progress with a fine 3^rd place finish. This is a great reward for Oisin who improved considerably on his result from last year. He will also go on to run in the Nationals with Dublin’s County/ Provincial teams. Evan Walshe (14^th) & Luke Reynolds (15^th) came in together in fine runs whilst Jack Moraghan & Dexter Finnegan also showed up well in what was a very fast race. The boy’s were unlucky not to take a team bronze, narrowly missing out.

Well done to all involved and pictures can be viewed here.