St Peters AC to fore as local cross-country racing resumes

The local Cross-Country season resumed earlier this month when Glenmore AC hosted their annual Kearney and McBride Cross Country meeting.

The first athlete into action for the St Peter’s Club was Ellen McCourt in the under ten girls’ race. Ellen was eager to get going again having taken great encouragement from watching her older club mates recently on the live stream from the National Championship.

As soon as the gun went, she was gone like a bat out of hell. However most watching on probably thought that perhaps she had gone too hard and wouldn’t be able to keep it going. But this determined athlete got even stronger and led from gun to tape for an emphatic victory.

Next up was Ellen’s brother James McCourt. James battled really well in the boys under twelve race and finished very strongly.

Tommy O’Donoghue moved up an age but was more than capable of mixing it with the older lads in the boys under fourteen race. He gave his all and was unlucky not to find himself in the medals after a brilliant effort.

The girls under fourteen race had two St Peter’s Athletes doing battle, Niamh Allen and Sadbh Sheelan. Both had very strong runs. Niamh was up in the business end of the race before just fading away in the closing stages.

Sadbh on the other hand eased herself into the race and then had a storming second half, passing several of her competitors over the last 200 metres.

The final athlete into action was Niamh Brady. Niamh as ever is always willing to represent her club and took a break from her studies to run her first senior Cross-Country race. She finished in a very respectable fourth place.  

What a great way to kick start her Senior career. With times like that, a place on the podium is surely not far away as she looks to continue what has been a great few years in the sport for her to date.