SEAMUS POWER produced the best Irish performance at the European Cross Country Championships in Charleroi, Belgium yesterday.
The Clare runner finished 13th the best Irish men's placing in the three-year history of the event. Power covered the muddy 6.5 kilometre course in 34 minutes exactly, but was nearly a minute and a half behind the British winner Jon Brown. Ireland were eighth in the team event.
Brown, who last week beat world champion Paul Tergat in Spain, won in 32 minutes 37 seconds, running away from the field just after the first kilometre marker had been passed.
The Irish women sorely missed the trio of Catherina McKiernan, Marie McMahon and Cathy McCandless, who are absent through illness and injury, and had to settle for seventh place in the team event with Valerie Vaughan leading the squad home in 21st place.
Gareth Turnbull, from St Malachy's, Belfast, finished fourth in the junior men's open race and the 18-year-old will be looking forward to next year's event in Portugal when the junior races are likely to be upgraded to championship status.
