Claire Annan – County Intermediate Champion

The Club travelled to Faugheen for the County Intermediate Road Championships. The Women’s 4k got proceedings underway and as the leaders came into the village, the leading group included Claire Annan. Then midway through the last lap Claire increased the pace and soon opened a lead on the chasing pack. She maintained that pace to come home a very worthy and convincing Champion in 14 mins 51 secs. This was a very impressive performance by Claire and great to see her winning this title. Then we had Suzanne Shine also running very well when finishing 4th in 15 mins 47 secs. Anne Marie Boland also ran very well when finishing 6th in 16 mins 4 secs and along with Claire and Suzanne won the Inter Club Gold medals and retained the County Intermediate Cup for another year. This win by Clare sees her join an elite group of Club members who have won this title in the past, Athletes such as Donna Nagle in 2000, Anne Cronin 2001, Marie Walsh 2002, Laura Taylor 2006, Kate McLoughlin 2007, Angela McCann 2008, Aine Roche 2008 and 2016, Kealey Tideswell 2009 and 2017, Catherine Rice 2012 and Johanna Lacey 2013. The Club team’s success was achieving a four in a row, fantastic achievement. Back to the race we also had good performances from Elaine Horgan who was 9th in 16 mins 32 secs, welcome back Elaine, great to see you competing well again in the club Colours. We also had good performances from Michelle Doherty when finishing 12th in 16 mins 50 secs and Eileen Hynes 18th in 18 mins 39 secs. Our 2nd Club team of Elaine, Michelle and Eileen finished joint 4th.

The Men’s 8K race was also competitive and here we had Anthony Bowen running very well when finishing 11th in 29 mins 5 secs. We also had good performances from Nigel O Flaherty 16th in 30 mins 19 secs, Conor Fleming 17th in 30 mins 34 secs, Oliver Lynch 26th in 32 mins 35 secs and Aidan Cremin 31st in 33 mins 31 secs. The team of Anthony, Nigel, Conor and Oliver combined very well to win the Inter Club Bronze medals with Oliver winning his first Championship medal with the Club, brilliant.