Avondale House played host to yesterday’s East Leinster Secondary Schools XC championship.The rolling hills and tough finishing stretch earmarks the venue as one of the country’s most challenging XC circuits. As always there were big numbers on show right across the age categories. The surface was surprisingly firm given the recent weather conditions and this made for some very fast races!! (a summary of results below/ please email additional results where required)
The Junior Girls got us off to a flying start with one of our new recruits Helena Paran (Mt Anville) finishing in 3rd place, followed home by Lina Kyne (Rathdown) in 9th place. Claire Doyle (Mt Anville) also had a fine showing in this race. The Junior boys saw Pappy Tucker (St Michaels) finishing in 3rd place- a great result when you consider that it was his first race in nearly 9 months. Jack Moraghan (Clonkeen College) was also competing in the Junior ranks. There was an action packed field assembled for the Inter girls race including multiple National champions and Junior Irish athletes with the very impressive Sarah Healy (Holy Child Killiney) taking a well deserved first place and club colleague, AmyRose Farrell (Mt Anville), taking a fine second place ahead of a very strong field. Julie Ringrose (Mt Anville) finished in 11th position with Anna Dignam (Mt Anville) also showing well. The Inter Boys saw Oisin Kelly (Newpark) in 11th place with Jack Moran and Patrick Moran (both St Michaels) putting in fine showings. In keeping with tradition and the very large #’s, the Minor age groups were last up with Evan Walshe (St Benildus) opting to run in the B Race over 1000m and having a fine showing finishing in 1st place whilst Ellen Cheung (Mt Anville) was an equally impressive and deserved winner in a very large field in the Minor Girls A race. Sarah Flaherty (St Andrews) also ran in the minor girls race.
Congrats to Ellen (Minor Girls 1500m) & Sarah (Inter Girls 2500m) on individual titles and to Evan on his first place finish in the Minor Boys B Race.
Top 15 individuals and Top 3 teams qualify for the Leinster Schools in a few weeks.
Well done to all….
