Medal haul increases at the Dublin Intermediates
Crusaders Women's and men's team at Dublin Intermediate 2011
Following on from team gold for the women in the Leinster Novice and the under 10 boys in Dublin, it would be a tall order for the Crusaders men and women teams in the Dublin Intermediate in Tymon park on Sunday 20th November. If there was ever an annual event where Crusaders have performed it is these championships; with a full set of both team and individual gold, silver and bronze medals over the previous three years, this was good hunting ground for Da Cru.
First up was the women’s team, victorious from the win in Belvedere House, the team was however weakened with Aoife Joyce on the sidelines due to her bronze medal performance from the previous year. As the field settled after a fast uphill 200m Catherine Thornton settled into 8th place with Emily Conroy and Dee Ni Chearbhaill not far behind. As the race developed Catherine moved up the field and with about 800m to go settled into 3rd and was closing in on 2nd. While it proved a few hundred metres too short for her to catch Leona O’Reilly from Liffey valley in 2nd, it proved a metre too long as Orinta Doneie of Donore caught her just on the line. This is a huge improvement from Catherine this season as she gets better with every race. Emily made more improvements moving up to 16th, nearly 10 places higher than her run in the Novice. Dee fresh (if that is the correct word) from her marathon exploits, recorded one of her highest finishing position finalising in 26th. It looks like the winning ways of the women’s team is not over yet.
The men’s team returned as defending champions minus the athletes from last year’s team. However, some quality athletes stepped up to fly the flag (just occurred to me we forgot to bring the Crusaders flag). Seven athletes lined up, with only two returnees from the previous year. Once the field settled down Sam Mealy settled into the second group 20m off the solo effort by a Sportsworld athlete, further down the field Stephen Moore had settled in 10th with Jason, Amidou, Christian and Kieran not far behind. After a lap the lead group had caught the escapee, with Steven and Jason in the top 15 and the remaining three Cru fighting it out for the 4th scoring spot. Less than a lap later Sam had moved off the front with Mark McDonald of Clonliffe, looking comfortable he eased away and ran the last 2k on his own gaining distance with every step. In the end Sam crossed the line so far in the lead that when he turned to see how far his winning margin was, no other athlete was in sight. Stephen had moved up to 7th on the last lap only to drop to 8th in the last 100m as a Donore athlete put in the fastest sprint finish of the day. Further back Jason changed position a few times over the last 300m but ended up in 17th position after moving up the field. Christian beat out Amidou for the final scoring place, with Kieran a few places back. The team effort led to Crusaders finishing level with Donore on 50 points but were awarded bronze medal based on a lower 4th scorer score. This is the third set of medals for the men’s team in four editions of the championships and Sam adds to Alan and Ray’s individual medals. Ten different athletes have scored on these medal winning teams.
It may be a few years before the winning under 10 team move up but they have already built on their win in Dublin by stepping up an age group to finish 3rd and qualified for the All Ireland in the under 11 category. Patrick Tucker added to his season medal haul with a bronze in the older age group.