There was a big Laois presence once again at the National Juvenile Cross Country Championships which were held in Navan Racecourse on Sunday.
After a very difficult course in Gowran two weeks ago, Navan had much better underfoot conditions, but still threw up plenty of testing sections for athletes.
Below, we have reports from St Abban’s and St Michael’s.
St Abban’s
On a day when medals are extremely difficult to come by, Will Duffy and Rachel Ayers performed brilliantly to bring home individual medals for St Abban’s.
As he has done all year, Will put himself in contention from the gun in the Boys U-15 3500m.
Will remained with the leading group throughout, eventually coming home in an excellent 4th place to pick up his first national medal.
Rachel also had a super run in the Girls U-17, were she worked her way through the field picking up five places on the last lap for a super 12th place finish.
Rachel was also a scoring member on the Leinster team who claimed silver medals.
This will be especially satisfying for Rachel because she had been struggling with injury earlier in the year.
Earlier in the day, fellow St Abban’s athlete Laura Ayres was unlucky not to pick up an individual medal finishing in 14th, but was a scoring member on the Leinster team who were 2nd province.
St Abban’s Girls U-13 club team of Laura Ayers, Zoe Dunne, Leah Dunphy, Ellie Knowles and Mollie Kelly finished up as 11th club and 9th county overall.
The Boys U-11 team finished in 12th place with Daire O Sullivan, Liam Doyle, Edward McDonald, Páidí Murrin and Conor Kennedy battling hard around the 1500m race.
In the Girl’s U15, the trio of Cara English, Chelsey Dooley and Katie Hartnett all packed closely over 3500m.
The Boys U-15 County team where the aforementioned Will Duffy was joined by Kalem Buggy and Eoghan Mitchell to take 8th County team overall.
Will was also a scoring member on the Leinster team who placed 2nd.
Finn Craig was the final athlete in action for St Abban’s, when he finished in 50th place in the Boys U-17 4500m.
St Michael’s
First up for St Michael’s AC was Hanna Luttrel and Amelie Milligan in the Girls U-13.
Both girls ran well and moved up through the field right from the start. Hanna finished in a very good 36th place and Amelie was just outside the top 100.
Next up was the U-15 boys. There was Dylan Yarrow, Gearóid McCann, Peter Fanning, Riley Connolly and Will Craig on the team.
All the lads ran really well and Will’s 20th position earned him a silver team medal on the Leinster team.
Siobhán O’Loughlin was the next athlete in the U-17 girls race. Siobhan worked her way up through the field to finish in a good 65th position.
Shane Maher took on the U-17 boys field. This race took out at a blistering pace and had a couple of fallers.
Kate Connolly was the last juvenile runner. Kate had a really solid run and came finished top twenty in 18th place and fourth scorer on the Leinster Gold medal team.
National Novice Cross Country Championship
The Novice race also took place on Sunday and in the Men’s event, Cian McDonald excelled.
The Ballyroan, Abbeyleix & District runner came home in eighth position overall following a fine run.
He was joined in the race by his clubmate Tom Dunne who performed well.
St Michael’s Aisling Stapleton took on the Women’s Novice ladies over a distance of 4k.
She was the only Laois runner in the field and she put in a great performance.
SEE ALSO – Shock at sudden death of young Laois man John Delaney
