County Novice - October 6th, 2019 - Michelle Strikes Again!

Novice Ladies:
Congrats to Michelle on winning her second individual XC medal in a week. Michelle followed up her impressive East Cork Senior performance with an even better one on Sunday in Liscarroll. She lead the field early on and was not afraid to take the race to the other girls and finished in 3rd overall. To put this in perspective, in 2017 she finished 39th and last year she was 28th. It just goes to show the improvement that can happen if you dedicate yourself enough to the training. Michelle also lead the womens team to silver medals. Niamh O'Connor was 9th overall after a ding dong battle for a long spell with Norah O'Brien, who ran her first XC race for the club. Norah was 12th overall and 4th in the U23 race. All the late training in Dublin after work seems to be paying dividends! Next home was the ever dependable Lorna Santry in 19th position with Eibhlin Cleary in 27th.

Novice Men:
Shane lead the mens team home with an impressive run in 4th overall, an impressive 10 places better than 2017 in Macroom. Tim Crowley ran an aggressive race and was rewarded with 7th. Chris Kelly on his debut for the club and first ever XC race had a stormer to finish in 10th with Donal hot on his heals for the whole race in 12th.. Another debutant was Paul Crotty who looked menacing over the first 4k. With a few more weeks training under his Paul will be a force to be reckoned with. Jonathon Finn was coming through the field like a train in the last lap and looked certain for a top 10 until an unmerciful stitch derailed him in the last 1km. The mens team were a carbon copy of the womens as they also won silver medals (but also were beaten by 10 points by Leevale!).

Upcoming Races: 

The County Senior XC is on Sunday in Carrigadrohid. The womens race of 6k will start at 12pm with the mens straight afterward at approx 12.30pm.

We have had a rich history in this race since the club formed in 1985 winning the team title 20 times and 9 individual titles from four men: Liam O'Brien (1989), Donncha O'Mahoney x6 (1990,1991,1992,1993,1994,2003), Garreth Barry (1997) and Tim O'Donoghue (2018)

​East Cork last won the team title in 2017 and will be looking to regain the title relinquished to Leevale last year, although a rejuvenated North Cork and last years intermediate All Ireland winners Togher could provide stiff competition too.

The team titles were won in: 85,86,88,89,90,91,92,94,96,03,04,05,06,07,08,09,10,11,13,17.

​​Breakdown of team winners below: *6 to count to 1995, 4 to count after: