From the sandy hills of Rosapenna golf course, in north Donegal, to the grassy Piemonte-La Mandria Park, just northwest of Turin, the talk now is not if Irish athletes can win medals at next month’s European Cross-Country, it’s how many.
Three clear prospects emerged from Sunday’s National Cross-Country, with a couple more in the team pursuits. They’re all on the younger side too, including Sarah Healy, who at age 21 became one of the youngest ever winners of the senior women’s title.
Sonia O’Sullivan was only 17 when she won it, in Killenaule back in 1987, and she went on to win some other things too. For Healy, the focus in Turin will be the Under-23 race, the UCD athlete finishing fifth in that race a year ago when staged at the Sport Ireland Campus in Abbotstown.
A year on in strength and maturity, Healy showed ample potential at Rosapenna on Sunday, kicking away from Ciara Mageean with a little over 800m of the 8km course to go, and winning by 15 seconds. Mageean did race most of the last 1,500m lap with only one spike, having lost the other, still Healy’s win over the three-time European 1,500m medallist was utterly convincing.
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“I’m excited to run the U-23 race and to be running 6km, instead of 8km,” said Healy, not that the long distance seemed to bother her on Sunday. “I was fifth last year, so I have to be going for a medal. And I’m so excited, it means a lot to me to win this (title) against such good girls.”
Indeed defending champion Michelle Finn of Leevale was some distance back in third, although she gained an automatic spot in the senior race, which Mageean will also look to run and set up a potential team medal shot.
Darragh McElhinney, who like Healy now runs for UCD AC and landed a first senior title at age 22, the Under-23 race will also be the focus on Turin. A year after finishing second in Dublin, leading the team to gold, there is no disguising his ambitions, the team looking decidedly stronger than last year.
The Glengarriff athlete showed a new level of maturity on Sunday too, in no way panicking when last year’s champion Hiko Tonosa Haso made his move up the last uphill stretch; Haso beat McElhinney by three seconds last year; this time McElhinney kicked hardest again to win by four – completing a treble of National titles, adding to the 3,000m indoors, and 5,000m outdoors. With two more of Sunday’s top-five Under-23, Efrem Gidey in fourth and Keelan Kilrehill in fifth, another team gold in Turin likely beckons.
So to Nick Griggs, the still 17-year-old running prodigy from Mid Ulster AC defending his Under-20 title on Sunday, out-kicking Dean Casey from Ennis Track AC: with both those on board for Turin the team prospects look golden there too.
“I’m not as naïve as last year, so I know to get a medal will be incredibly tough,” Griggs said. “The goal will be top five and as a team, hopefully we can take home that gold for Ireland.”
