Day 1 of the National Cross Country Championships took place on Sunday in the grounds of Santry Demesne in Dublin. For anyone who hasn’t been to them, the National Championships are an eye-opener to the talent around the country. At adult level, you are literally up against the nation’s elite. You could take the top 3 out of every road race in the country and put them together in the same race and you have the quality that is the National Cross Country Championships.

This level of quality is repeated in the juvenile age groups where you have the top 200 in action from each age group in the country. This is the elite of the elite. With perhaps 60,000 kids born in the same year and with each race comprising 2 ages, you are up against the best of 120,000 children born in the same 2 years as you. Often times this can be forgotten when people compete at National level and finish down the field a little – but you are competing against the best of the best and to be even there in the same race is a fantastic achievement.

The best performance of the day for the club came in the Junior Men’s 6000m where Damian O’Boyle had an impressive run to place 11th in the Junior Men’s 6000m in a time of 19:21 – one of Damian’s finest runs in cross country since his debut as an U13 in 2009. Interestingly Damien made his National cross country debut in the ill-fated Coleraine cross country in 2009 and placed 11th in the rerun in Boyle the following February – the same place that he occupied on Sunday against a star-studded field.

The races kicked off earlier on Sunday with the U12 Girls 2000m where Craughwell put in a gallant effort to finish as 13th team with Emily Miskella 51st (just missing out as a scorer on the Connacht team that placed 3rd), Aoibhe Carr 87th, Saoirse Moore 88th, Jade Moorhead 98th and Rebekah Flynn 122nd. IN the U12 Boys 2000m. Evan Hallinan placed 84th while in the U14 boys 3000m Kyle Moorhead placed 85th. In the U14 Girls 2000m, Ailbhe Miskella placed 124th and Sarah Woods 141st while in the U16 Girls 4000m Catherine Noonan placed 92nd and Sinead Kennedy 99th. Ben Ryan placed 87th in the U16 4000m with Patrick Noonan 110th. Caron Ryan took 50th place in the U18 Girls 4000m while Jack Miskella placed 99th in the U18 6000m with Tiernan Burke 108th and Ben Vahey 115th.

Well done to all of our participants. Full results are at:- http://www.athleticsireland.ie/competition/results/