Mud and grass where the order of the day for our athletes this Sunday. Conditions where slightly windy but otherwise good as our tremendous trio of Claire Thompson, Donna Quinn and Aoife Joyce took to the start of the Wicklow Novice Cross-Country.
WICKLOW NOVICE CROSS-COUNTRY 2021 – ROUNDWOOD
Very little could detract from a great day except the slightly small size of the ladies’ field: and among those not returning for the 2022 will be our own Claire Thompson who finally broke her ‘Gold Duck’.
Claire had finished 4th in her Novice debut in 2015 and narrowly missed out on the gold on several occasions with Silver in the Novice in 2016 and 2017 on top of Silver and Bronze in the Intermediate in 2015 and 2016. But in her 6th Wicklow cross-country race (and 9th overall) she secured the Gold and knocked herself out of county Novice competition for good. Her winning time of 15:28 was her second fastest time over 4 km cross-country since her 14:31 in the Leinster Novice 2016. She also knocked 1:45 off her personal best over this particular course in Roundwood.
Her closest rival on the day was club mate Donna Quinn who took a somewhat unorthodox pacing approach starting at the back of the field and working her way through on the first few laps.
She was closing aggressively towards the end and finished 2nd only 6 seconds behind Claire. this was by some distance Donna’s fastest cross-country race – 38 seconds faster her previous best (in the Wicklow Intermediate 2016).
Third counter on the day and instrumental in securing Team Gold was Aoife Joyce – 11 years on from securing the Bronze medal in the Dublin Novice with Crusaders AC – she secured her second Team Gold with Glendalough AC (adding to the Wicklow Masters 2019).
FULL RESULTS
- Claire Thompson 15:28
- Donna Quinn 15:34
7. Aoife Joyce 16:47
CARLINGFORD
Much further North, Barry O’Neill and Johnny Conway (‘fresh’ from his outing the previous weekend in the Wicklow EcoTrail 80k) took on Slieve Foy outside Carlingford where local man Michael Dowling took the victory.
In a field of 44 Johnny claimed the always covetted ‘top-10’ with 6th place overall and Barry O’Neill took 15th.
FULL RESULTS
- Michael Dowling 46:43
———GLENDALOUGH AC RUNNERS———-
6. John Conway 52:22
15. Barry O’Neill 54:26
Glendalough AC 