Team honours for distance men

THE City of Derry distance men lifted team silver in both the Senior and Masters categories at Sunday’s National Half Marathon championship in Athenry, as Letterkenny’s Maria McCambridge ran 75 minutes and 25 seconds to take the senior womens individual crown.
By The Newsroom
Published 6th Sep 2012, 10:16 BST

Greg Roberts 5th, Declan Reed 7th and Emmet McGinty 14th were the Spartans scoring trio in the senior team race, backed up by Kieran Hurley.

In hot, humid conditions and on a tough undulating two lap course the red vests battled well to split Dublin clubs Clonliffe Harriers and Rathfarnham WSAF and bring home team silver medals. James Brown with an inspired 73 minutes and 46 seconds run led Paddy Doherty, Damien McGinty and Paul McCafferty to an equally deserved Masters mens team silver to make it a good day for the local club.

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Declan Reed also claimed the M35 individual silver medal, James Brown stepped up big time to add the M40 bronze to his team silver and Christy McMonagle yet again proved unbeatable with another M65 individual win. Scott Rankin had a decent debut over the distance with a 73 minutes and 35 seconds clocking and was followed by Foyle Valley clubmates Pius Mcintyre and Chris McGuinness. Pauric McKinney travelled with the Derry lads and won the M45 age group individual gold.

Annadale strider Paul Pollock the reigning NI/Ulster cross country champion surprised everyone bar perhaps himself by slashing four minutes off his PB, clocking an impressive winning time of 64 minutes and 17 seconds to finish comfortably clear of Clonliffe’s Sergui Ciobanu on 66 minutes and 47 seconds and Rathfarnham’s defending champion, Seamn Hehir on 67 minutes and 05 seconds.

Aileen Morrison made a surprise appearance at Sunday’s Laganside 10k in Belfast and finished second to Dromore’s Julie Turley who posted a good 36 minutes and 02 seconds to the derry athletes 37 minutes and 42 seconds.

Meanwhile Ciara Armstrong, the promising young Spartans sprinter who was called into the National Youth/Junior relay squad for their weekend training sessions in Dublin’s Santry stadium.

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A significant call up for Ciara who had an excellent 2012 season at provincial, national and international level, she was one of three Ulster Youth athletes at last weekends Santry session and hopefully impressed the Irish selectors.

Related topics:City of DerryMasters