World Cross Country

DaveH

Well folks heading over on Saturday morning for the World X
and excuse me as I gloat a little bit here,

4 Raheny Shamrock Athletes have been selected to wear the green Singlet.

These are Orla O'Mahony & Annette Kealy in the Snr Women's and Vinny Mulvey & Mick Clohissey in the Snr Men's.

Raheny have provided the Irish with more athlete's than any other club!!!

Some club they have there!!

Waits for the Clonliffe reaction!:D

Rineanna

I'm booked to go over too, but Ryanair changed my flight time during the week for the Sunday so I'd be flying home before the first race even starts!:mad:
No other flight suits to change to, so I'm going to have to skip it; i'm majorly peeved. Majorly. But I'm going to go to a Grand Prix during the Summer. Maybe one of the Golden League meets or Crystal Palice.

thirtyfoot

Rineanna wrote: »

But I'm going to go to a Grand Prix during the Summer. Maybe one of the Golden League meets or Crystal Palice.

Choose Crystal Palace, some serious fields being got together by all accounts.

thirtyfoot

DaveH wrote: »

Well folks heading over on Saturday morning for the World X
and excuse me as I gloat a little bit here,

4 Raheny Shamrock Athletes have been selected to wear the green Singlet.

These are Orla O'Mahony & Annette Kealy in the Snr Women's and Vinny Mulvey & Mick Clohissey in the Snr Men's.

Raheny have provided the Irish with more athlete's than any other club!!!

Some club they have there!!

Waits for the Clonliffe reaction!:D

Is this not the Raheny reaction?:D

5 in a row, say no more, end of, time to move on:cool:

myflipflops

If anyone fancies a punt on the World Cross, here's a link to prices:

http://www.paddypower.com/bet?action=go_sports_level1&category=SPORTS&ev_class_id=22

(I work for PP so if posting this is not on then apologies)

Common Sense

Good luck to all our athletes. Read Tom O'Riardon's interview with Cragg in today's Mail. Like his attitude. Both Cragg and Britton should be in with a shout of making the top 20. Can't see beyond Bekele and Dibaba for the individual golds, though some Kenyan could spring a shock on Bekele.

Rineanna

Oh, Lordi. Back to the drawing board for Team Ireland.

To be frank, Fionnuala Britton had a poor performance by her own standards. As was pointed out on the RTÉ commentary, she's as good as either of the Yellings, who finished in-and-around the top 20.

Cragg and Mulvey didn't finish due to injury, I believe.

Oh well, here's to the Euro cc in DUB next year. Hopefully we'll have a women's team comprising of Britton, McGettigan, Cullen, Linda and Deirdre Byrne and another.

The Junior women's team should have the two Ffrench-O' Carrolls, Eimear Black, Ciara Magean, Suzanne Huet (overage?).

Both of those could snatch a team medal, if not an individual one.

What do ye think of Gerry Kiernan's analysis that Cragg should get out of the U.S? I remember there was war after the last time he suggested a change of location for James Nolan!

Pherekydes

Rineanna wrote: »

The Junior women's team should have the two Ffrench-O' Carrolls, Eimear Black, Ciara Magean, Suzanne Huet (overage?).

No, Huet and the FOC's have all just turned 18 and will still be eligible for the Euro junior cross team in Santry.

Clum

Rineanna wrote: »

What do ye think of Gerry Kiernan's analysis that Cragg should get out of the U.S? I remember there was war after the last time he suggested a change of location for James Nolan!

He was cut off in mid sentence while suggesting Santry had as good as a set up as any where in the States. He's in a world of his own. Cragg has a very close relationship with his coach John McDonnell and to leave his coach, and the facilities in Arkansas, behind, to train in a country he's hardly spent a full weekend in, would do him no good at all.

Good old RTE took an ad break while the women were finishing their race! Were none of the RTE team watching the race? Had they waited 5 seconds they'd have seen Britton cross the finish line. I switched to BBC as soon as the ad break started and there was Britton coming down the finishing straight.

thirtyfoot

Maybe Britton is focusing on the bigger picture and working on her speed as it something she is lacking for the 3000SC, who knows but I'd say she'd scarifice a poor (ish) run yesterday for a final in August. It wasn't a very strong team generally and outside of herself and Cragg there wasn't much more expectation but it was good experience for all the guys ahead of the Euro CC on home soil which is something they should be building up to on the country.

Good run by Murphy the junior though.

lisbon_lions

Clum wrote: »

Good old RTE took an ad break while the women were finishing their race! Were none of the RTE team watching the race? Had they waited 5 seconds they'd have seen Britton cross the finish line. I switched to BBC as soon as the ad break started and there was Britton coming down the finishing straight.

Noticed that myself - they didnt even wait for their own to cross the line (a matter of seconds). It was bad form all right. Ad revenue seems more important that the license payers tbh.

Sorry, back on topic, it was a poor run by her standards and as someone else pointed out, capable of a top-20 like the Yelling girl.

islandexile

Bekele was awesome yesterday and even though i'm a huge Haile Gebresellassie fan, I think Bekele is a superior athlete.

Bit disappointed that RTE didn't show the Junior races (or highlights even) but in saying that I think Jerry Kiernan is a good analyst who calls it as he sees it. Hopefully he'll be on the Olympic games panel.

token56

With the exception of Murphy I feel the Junior men had a poor run. For example Mulhare was without doubt capable of a top 50 run. He beat Murphy in Queens and finished just behind him in the schools and should have been up with him in Scotland.

I fear for Irish athletics being able to compete at the top level in senior competition when it seems our young athletes find it so hard to compete on the world stage.

DaveH

Well all I can say is the men's Senior Race yesterday was brillant. Best race i have ever seen won by the best athlete the world has ever seen. When he lost his shoe he just calmly fixed it and got back into the race 40 places behind the leader and he ends up winning comfortably.
I was at the European X last December and really enjoyed it but the jump in standard and a crowd of 20K + was unbelievale.

As for the Irish athlete's, 2 DNF's in the Snr Men's. Mulvey had a very bad cold during the week and really shouldnt have started. 2 laps in he was struggling badly and decided to cut his losses. Cragg started very hard but said his groin went and dropped out.
Ledwith ran very well, very impressed with him. Paul Mc had a good run, second irish man home, I thought his carrer was finished this time last year, Clohisey was the youngest man on the team, he has real potentail in the country. Gary Thornton and Brian Maher battled hard throught the field.
The Senior Women, Fionnula had a bad day at the office, she just never got going really. Linda Byrne is only 22 she is another good prospect and Deirdre Byrne ran ok in my opinion. Orla O'Mahony could have ran better but her form this year really has been great with the exception of the National Snr. Annette Kealy running her first WX at the age of 40! Suzanne McCormack dug in from the start.
Jnr women, Sarah Louise had a very good run, if the 2 French-O'Carrol's and Huet had have run the irish team could have caused a small shock.
Jnr Men, Men Mullhare had a bad day at the office, Craig Murphy ran well so did David Flynn. The jnr men all went after the race so i would give them a lot of credit.

I wouldnt be to down hearted about Irish Athlete's. In my opinion Martin Fagan is the best Middle Distance Irish athlete at the moment. We have a fairly good team with Marty, Ledwith, Alister, Sweeney, Clohisey. Three of them were on the Under 23 in the European's. As far as I know Gary Murray and Christie wont run the World's. Their own reasons. The two O'Carrol girls have an awful lot to offer judging by the Jnr Girl's race yesterday.

It was fanastic yesterday, load of Irish Support, over 20 from Raheny and way over 20 from Clonliffe. Ferrybank, Civil Service & Tullamore all had big crowd with them. Edingburgh is a great city for a bit of crack. The course was located at the bottom of the town great location. Free in and around 20K show up.

T'was a good weekend

token56

I must apologise for being harsh on Mulhare, turns out he is strugling with injury, which I know to be true

Pherekydes

lisbon_lions wrote: »

Noticed that myself - they didnt even wait for their own to cross the line (a matter of seconds). It was bad form all right. Ad revenue seems more important that the license payers tbh.

Sorry, back on topic, it was a poor run by her standards and as someone else pointed out, capable of a top-20 like the Yelling girl.

No need to apologise. RTE need to hear more negative feedback. I've taken the liberty (as mod of this forum) of forwarding the comments about their coverage to the RTE sports dept. I signed it "The Athletics Forum on Boards.ie".

Back on topic: I missed nearly all of the coverage because I was in Dunboyne for their road races. Just arrived home in time to see Bekele absolutely dismantle the cream of the world's best distance running talent. I didn't understand what was being said about lost shoes until they showed the replay. The BEEB showed him cruising past Mottram like he was a man in a boys' race.

Jay P

I have to say something about Bekele. It was a phenomenal performance from definately the most talented athlete ever. But I personally think that his performance was almost inhuman. I mean, not only the fact that he won, and that he won by so much, but the fact he did so well despite the fact he lost hhis shoe and lost 25+ metres in the process. He then went on to breeze by the rest of the world's leading athletes without breaking a sweat. The fact that the leading group was so far ahead of everyone else, and then the fact he was so far ahead of them is just amazing. And at the end he didn't even look tired. Wow!:eek::eek::eek:

myflipflops

Slow coach wrote: »

No need to apologise. RTE need to hear more negative feedback. I've taken the liberty (as mod of this forum) of forwarding the comments about their coverage to the RTE sports dept. I signed it "The Athletics Forum on Boards.ie".

Good work Slow Coach. I've e-mailed them about their coverage before, mainly about Catherine Davis' commentating ability (or rather her complete lack of same). Athletics gets very little television coverage in any year on RTE so it annoys me when the quality is poor and the sport isn't shown in a poor manner.