Wicklow Runner May be Heading for World Championships

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Wicklow Runner May be Heading for World Championships

Sunday, March 11 2007

New women's champion Fionnuala Britton, who added her first national inter-club title to this season's earlier inter-county victory is likely heading to the World Cross Country Championships in Kenya in two weeks' time.

The double-winning Wicklow athlete has already taken the precaution of taking all her necessary shots for Kenya. Local woman Mary Cullen (North Sligo) threw down the gauntlet to her in no uncertain manner but, with 3,000m to go, Britton, a silver medallist at European U23 level before Christmas, pulled clear and won extremely comfortably by a 24-second margin in 29.11.

Her San Diego-based Sli Cualann team-mate Deirdre Byrne took bronze, her first medal in the event. Like fifth-placed Roisin McGettigan, she had come home from America to assist their amalgamated Wicklow club's bid for team gold but they were pipped for it, by a mere five points, by North Belfast Harriers.

Recent school's champion John Coghlan, son of former international great Eamonn, pulled clear in the final stages to win the junior boy's title in 28.32 but Raheny's David Rooney deserved great credit for bravely taking him on before finishing third after being overtaken in the final 500m by Clonliffe's David Flynn - who had taken bronze in the schools'.

In the absence of her twin Charlotte, Rebecca Ffrench O'Carroll won the junior women's, 27 seconds clear of recent school's champion and DSD team-mate Suzanne Huet. Their club-mate Bryony Treston completed a medal sweep for Dundrum South Dublin.

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