Noah and his Ark wouldn’t have been out of place in Athenry today such was the steady downpour that rained down for most of the day. With many sporting events cancelled on the day including the senior hurling semi-final between Craughwell and Clarinbridge, Galway’s juvenile cross country warriors made light of the weather conditions to put in some fine performances. It was yet another day to remember for Craughwell AC who dominated the boys‘events and came close to repeating this in the girls’ races.

Peadar Harvey put in a towering performance to win the U19 boys 4000m race by a considerable distance. Clearly Peadar’s banishment from Clarinbridge to Letterfrack is paying dividends … the night life in Letterfrack is very conducive to long-distance runnng!  

Making his debut for the club, Neil Greaney had a fine run to take the Galway title in the U17 boys 4000m, not far off the pace set by Peadar whose race was ran at the same time. Matthew Moran and John Cormican made it the perfect result for the club when placing 2nd and 3rd. Unfortunately we didn’t have a 4th runner on the day with Nicholas Sheehan and Conor Gillen both lost to injuries for this race, Finn Stoneman busy with rubgy and Paul Fitzpatrick and Keelan Ryan playing a football final.

The boys U15 3000m saw a very impressive victory for Jamie Spellman with Damien O’Boyle finishing strongly in 3rd place, Diarmuid Harvery 6th and Mark Buckley running a very steady race to take 8th place and in the process the team victory for the club with a score of 18 points. Hard luck to Andrew O’Boyle who withdrew during the race due to injury despite a big effort to complete the race.

In the boys U13 2000m, a huge battle ensued between James Cahalane and Matthew Barrett at the front of the race with Matthew just having enough to take the Galway title ahead of James. A fantastic club performance saw Liam Moran follow swiftly in 4th place, Brian Loughnane 5th, Sam McArdle 6th, Conor Lee 8th, Ben Sharkey 9th, Jerry Keary 13th, Jack Lally 14th, Diarmuid McCartin 15th. Mark Greaney 16th and Gearoid Treacy 22nd.These performances were good enough to give the club the team victory with 12 points and team silver with 36 points, ahead of Athenry on 75 points – very impressive running.

The U11 boys 1000m saw another big race from Finbar McFadden who stepped up an age and put in a strong performance to take individual 3rd place.  Finbar was followed by great running from 8th-placed Darren Lyons, 9th Conor Hughes, 11th Ryan Gallagher, 12th Darragh O’Connor, 13th Patrick Noonan, 14th Cathal Walshe, 15th Cian Garman, 23rd Sean Noonan and 26th Garvin Surlis. The team victory went to the Craughwell boys with 31 points, narrowly ahead of Athenry who finished on 33 points. In fact the boys were unluckly not to take a 2nd set of medals, losing out on bronze by just 6 points.

Back to the girls and the first race of the day saw a magnificent performance from the Craughwell girls in the U11 1000m to take team silver and bronze with 25 points and 60 points. Leading the team home, the ever-improving Roisin Hansbury had a fine individual performance to take 3rd place. Roisin was quickly followed by Sarah McCartin in 6th, Ailbhe Miskella 7th, Emma Urquhart 9th, Abigail McNally 13th, Niamh Treacy 14th, Eva Kelly 16th, Catherine Noonan 17th, Tara Stephens 18th, Tara Farrell 19th, Siona Lawless 20th, Caoimhe Allen 21st, Lenagh Gilligan 22nd, Claire Treacy 23rd, Leigha O’Boyle 25th, Sarah Woods 28th, Ciara Commins 30th and Beth Sullivan 32nd.

The U13 girls 1500m saw a big battle for the bronze medal between Dearbhaile Walshe and Loughrea’s Grace Finnerty with Dearbhaile having to settle for 4th place on this occasion. But a strong team performance claimed the silver medals with 29 points – 7 Erin Fitzpatrick, 8 Aoife Greene, 10 Grace Whiriskey, 13 Ciara O’Boyle, 14 Alice Whirskey and 15 Shonagh Gilligan.

The U15 girls 2500m saw yet another team victory for the club with 14 points – led home by Ciara Greene with a fine silver medal, followed closely by Sinead Treacy in 3rd, Grainne McDaid in 4th and Leanne Freaney in 5th.

Overall it was a great day for the club and a great performance across the 2 days of Galway cross-country with many team victories and individual medallists. The following is a quick summary:-

So a real conveyor belt of running talent coming through, particularly in the boys where we won all of the Galway individual titles bar the U11 and U12 races and won all team titles in races in which we had teams except the U12 boys race. And promising results for the girls too and hopefully something that will develop into the older ages over the next few years.

Full results of todays races are here.