County Senior XC - Oct 14th, 2018

First Individual winner in 15 years:
Congrats to Tim O'Donoghue who blew away the field to win the Cork Senior XC title for the first time and the first East Cork athlete to claim the individual honours in 15 years since Donnacha O'Mahoney won his 6th and final title in 2003. Tim set a blistering pace in the opening lap and continued to expand his lead throughout comfortably winning in 33.06. Tim is at the peak of his training for Dublin Marathon so hopefully he will go just as well there in 2 weeks time.

Sean was a commendable 2nd overall having a titanic battle throughout with inform and reigning National Masters champion Paul Moloney. Sean outsprinted Paul in the tight closing corners to ensure a 1-2 for East Cork. Unfortunately this still wasn't good enough to retain the team title as Leevale packed very well showing good strength in depth without their talisman Mark Hanrahan. They had 6 athletes in the top 10 with James and Kevin just behind in 11th and 12th meaning we missed out by 3 points. Frank Hayes had a solid run in 16th overall, Tim O'Mahoney in 22nd, Eric Meade in 27th and Denis running his 37th County Senior championship race was 33rd.

Fiona Santry had a tremendous run in the Senior Womens getting 3rd overall in her 6th attempt on this race. Fiona has been consistently knocking on the door for a few years. This should be all the more sweeter this year having come only 9 seconds outside the medals last year. Fiona has been improving year on year with dedicated training so this was very well deserved. I am not sure when the last time an East Cork lady won an individual medal at the county senior championships but has certainly been a long time coming. Congrats Fiona. 

This was the first time East Cork had a team in the womens Senior race in many years and they finished in 5th overall so big congratulations to Eadaoin (19th), Eibhlin who had a stormer of a race and has really come into mighty form since recently getting married (23rd), Lorna who is only back training a few weeks in 24th and Michelle the new womens club captain right behind her in 25th.
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