Murray powers past hero to senior title

Athletics/National Cross Country Championships: The only thing better than winning your first national senior cross country title is beating your hero while doing so. Just ask Gary Murray. On a day when all four races produced new champions, Murray's victory was most symbolic of a changing of the guards.

A sizeable crowd had gathered at the Santry Demesne on Saturday, and for many the burning question was whether defending champion Séamus Power could claim his fifth title. He ran his heart - and, it seems - his guts out, but in the end Power finally surrendered to a new and worthy champion from Donegal.

For so much of the 12-kilometre race Power was in the thick of it, surging and counter-surging in an effort to drop Murray and Mark Kenneally of Dublin, who together with the Clare athlete had broken clear shortly before halfway.

But with two of the six laps remaining the champion started to buckle. There have been plenty of occasions when Power has been calling for the undertaker only to remake a dramatic recovery, but not this time. In fact he practically came to a standstill on the last lap, crouching over with a stomach pain brought on by bravely surpassing his true level of fitness.

It was a poignant sight, but not unexpected considering he'd only six weeks of training behind him. So as Power dropped back to finish fifth, Murray rose confidently to his last challenger and put 20 seconds between himself and Kenneally.

"I promised myself I wasn't going to leave anything in the tank," said Murray, who became the first interclubs champion from Donegal since Cyril O'Boyle in 1952. "Around the last bend I thought I was going to keel over, but thankfully the damage was done."

Now 25, and a junior winner in 1999, Murray's graduation to the senior ranks is complete. That he took the title from Power made that moment all the more special.

"Séamus has always been hero of mine. He's been contesting national after national since I was a junior. I was saying to myself out there that if Séamus beats me I can take it, because of the way I look up to him. But I couldn't take a defeat from anyone else.

"So right now this is the best feeling in the world. If I get a run of these titles like Séamus that would be great, but I'm more than happy with the one for the moment."

A native of Ballybofey, Murray is now a PE teacher based in Derry and runs with the St Malachy's club in Belfast. While always a precocious talent, he puts his more recent improvements down to the sagacious coaching of David Burke, who won this title for Mullingar in 1995.

For the 33-year-old Power, however, there could be no regrets: "I thought things were looking good with two laps to go. Still, I was running as hard as I could and then I was hit by this stitch. That's not an excuse, but my stomach gave up. I thought I was going to vomit. I knew I was running outside myself.

"I suppose these are all a lot younger than me, too, but I wanted to put myself in the front line. In the end I just couldn't take everything that was thrown at me. Maybe on another day I could have pulled it off, but look, I'm not too disappointed. I've probably enough titles anyway."

Paul McNamara of Athenry produced the most telling kick after Power's demise to take the bronze medal, and while host club Clonliffe Harriers were rewarded with that team title, Dundrum South Dublin won the other three.

Donore Harriers had never won an individual woman's title, but American-born Jolene Byrne finally gave them that honour after an epic duel with Dublin's Maria McCambridge.

From the gun Byrne and McCambridge ran like a pair of Siamese twins, and no one else got a look in. Both were even money going into the last lap, but suddenly Byrne gritted her teeth and took off, winning in the end by nine seconds. Former junior champion Fionualla Britton was third.

"Maria is some runner," said Byrne, "so I knew if I was going to go by her that was it, I'd have to keep going. It's been such a great season, I still can't believe it. But I'm really enjoying it."

Fourth last year, Byrne has come a long way from her home town of Middlebury, in northern Indiana, and will now lead the Irish challenge at next month's World Cross Country in St Etienne, France. And the Dublin-based accountant is setting no limits on her future.

"I wanted to win this Irish title so much. That's what got me through the last lap. I had the chance of winning it, and I didn't want to miss the opportunity. Hopefully I can just keep on improving form here."

Class is the only word necessary to describe the two junior winners on Saturday. Danny Darcy of the St Laurence O'Toole club in Carlow turned the junior men's race into one long, beautiful solo run, while Rose Anne Galligan of Newbridge AC bided her time with remarkable confidence before out-sprinting Linda Byrne to take the junior women's title.