Rankin holds off Sparta duo to win at Stormont

At the latter venue the City of Derry Spartans women’s squad led by Hannah Shields in fifth, also confirmed their runners up spot in the season long Athletics NI cross country League, finishing fourth on the day, and the male red vests could afford not to contest the team race on Saturday as they already had been confirmed as men’s League champions with their Irvinestown victory two weeks ago.

But back to the National Masters in Cow Park Dunboyne, and indeed it was a muddy and windy outing for the runners.

It was also a frustrating day as the detailed results were not confirmed post race and while Declan Reed’s emphatic overall victory and M40 gold, was clear for all to see, as was Inishowen’s Pauric McKinney, second overall and M45 gold medal run, most runners left the venue unclear as to the detailed age group and team results.

The Spartan made light of the opposition and the conditions to win convincingly by 20 seconds over the 7K course and demonstrated he is back to the form he showed for most of last year.

He finished second behind Peter Matthews in this race last February when Gransha hosted the championships and claimed the M35 gold in the process and moved effortlessly to the M40 title on Sunday.

Reed indeed seems to get better with age and looks set to remain a big force in both Masters and Open competition for some time yet.

So too the Buncrana based McKinney who at 49years of age shows little sign of slowing down.

The delayed results means that the Spartans Male Masters squad of Reed, Colin Roberts a good 16th overall, Paul McCafferty, James Brown, Michael Murphy and Mark Mullan left Dunboyne with the possibility of team bronze unconfirmed.

The Dublin clubs Raheny and Rathfarnam looked to have grabbed team gold and silver.

It was a similar story in the Female Masters and Male 65+ race where M70 Chrisy McMonagle seems to have won age group silver behind Donore runner Terry Meade and F60 Roisin Lynch’s storming run unable to be classified, with either gold or silver mentioned.

Apparently some runners didn’t wear their essential electronic chips which record their finish place and time and some omitted to wear the allocated race number. It will all of course be sorted in time.

Among the confirmed results the Finn Valley men won the Intermediate team title with Gerard Gallagher taking individual bronze and their Female Masters quartet as expected claimed team gold.

Meanwhile the hugely successful 2013/14 ANI Crosss Country League finished with a flourish at Stormont on Saturday with an impressive local one, two, three in the Mens race from Scott Rankin, Emmett McGinty and Noel Logan.

While the City of Derry Spartans women’s squad also grabbing a fourth place team finish, they comfortably claimed the League runners up honours behind new champions Springwell Runners and ahead of defending champions North Down.

Local runners did very well in the League, the Spartans emphatically retained their Men’s team title, Foyle Valley star Scott Rankin claimed the overall Men’s individual crown with a series of consistently high finishes, and the female red vests as already mentioned were at the business end of the Women’s League.

Scott Rankin of Foyle Valley led home the huge field of both male and female runners at Stormont on Saturday, a win which definitely gives him the overall League Series male individual win and he was chased home by Spartans Emmett McGinty and Noel Logan.