The strong showing by athletes from Ulster at the recent national championships is reflected in the 36-strong squad announced by Athletics Ireland to contest the upcoming SPAR European Cross Country Championships which take place in Antalya, Turkey, on Sunday December 8.
Ann-Marie McGlynn’s stunning victory at Irvinestown is recognised with the Strabane resident leading the senior women’s team. The 44-year-old is no stranger to these championships and won a team bronze medal as recently as 2022 in Turin. What is all the more remarkable is that it is less than a month since she won the national marathon title making this an autumn to remember for the mother of three who competes domestically in the colours of Letterkenny AC.
McGlynn will be joined on the senior women’s team by Niamh Allen (Leevale AC), Danielle Donegan (Tullamore Harriers), Fiona Everard (Bandon AC), Mary Mulhare (Portlaoise AC) and Cheryl Nolan (St Abban’s AC).
There is also a healthy Ulster representation on the women’s U23 team which will see both Finn Valley’s Amy Greene and Roise Roberts from the Belfast Candour Track Club lining up alongside home-based Emma McEvoy (Dundrum South Dublin AC) and Lucy Holmes (West Waterford AC). Laura Mooney (Tullamore Harriers) who was 56th last weekend at the NCAA Division One cross country in the USA, and her clubmate Ava O’Connor, who placed 19th in the NCAA Division II cross country. Both will fly home to bolster the team’s medal hopes.
Nick Griggs steps up to the U23 age group after plundering medals in the U20 for the past three years. North Belfast Harrier Matthew Lavery and Griggs’ Candour club mate Callum Morgan join him. The sextet is completed by Niall Murphy (Ennis Track AC), who took the senior silver medal at nationals, Cathal O’Reilly (Kilkenny City Harriers) and Paul Hartnett (East Cork AC).
Willowfield’s Lucy Foster leads the women’s U20 team where she will have northern support from Enniskillen Running Club’s Annabel Morrison, East Down’s Anna Gardiner, who returns from the USA after helping Providence College take team bronze in the NCAAs, and Lagan Valley’s Eva Bartlett. Avril Millerick (Youghal AC) and Caitlin Hughes (Swinford AC) complete the line-up.
Lagan Valley’s Frank McGrath and UCD AC’s Lughaidh Mallon are the northerners in the men’s U20 race where they will be joined by newly crowned national champion Jonas Stafford (UCD AC), Sean Quinn (DSD AC), Noah Harris (Parnell AC) and Cormac Dixon (Tallaght AC).
The senior men’s team is the only one of the six without an Ulster athlete. National champion Keelan Kilrehill will be ably assisted by Cormac Dalton (Mullingar Harriers), Efrem Gidey (Clonliffe Harriers), Sean Tobin (Clonmel AC), William Fitzgerald (Craughwell AC), and Pierre Murchan (Dublin City Harriers).
Kilrehill and Dalton both featured on the Irish senior men’s team that finished fourth at last year’s championships in Brussels, with Dalton finishing inside the top ten individually.
Speaking at the announcement, Athletics Ireland National Endurance Co-Ordinator, Mark Kenneally said:
“On the back of last year’s success in Brussels, I am delighted that we travel to Turkey with strong teams again. It is getting harder to make the Irish team for the European Cross Country Championships year on year, and great credit goes to all the athletes who have made this team. We now travel to Turkey in December with realistic medal ambitions and will look for strong performances from athletes across the board.”
