Ciara knows a winner when she sees one

LITTLE Ciara basked in the limelight when her mum Sonia O’Sullivan strode home in style at the Women’s Mini Marathon yesterday.

The three-year-old took matters into her own hands and placed the gold medal around her mother's neck.

Around 38,000 competitors took part in the race in Dublin, raising an estimated €5 million for hundreds of charities.

Traffic came to a standstill for several hours as women and some outrageously dressed men took to the streets for the 10km race.

The race may have been won by Sonia in a time of 33 minutes and 21 seconds but there were medals strung over 40km of specially-designed ribbon for every competitor who crossed the balloon-festooned finishing line at Stephen's Green.

The 20-year-old race also has a high finishing rate fewer than 1% of entrants fail to cross the line.

Most of the entrants raised between €100 and €200 in sponsorship for their favourite charities.

The sun came out, the rain held off and a refreshing breeze kept the participants cool as they navigated a loop in and around the city centre.

Two hula-hula 'girls' - Colin Campbell and Neal Rowland, both from Sandyford, Co Dublin, raised €400 in sponsorship between them for the Meningitis Research Foundation.

However, neither were too keen to queue up for a rub down by students from the Institute of Physical Therapy who were only too happy to help the women limber up for the 10km race.

One of the students, Roger Thomas, worked on the leg and ankle muscles of Rosemary Hudson who participated with her dog Molly on behalf of the Wicklow-based Festina Lente Foundation. The group gives horse-riding lessons to young adults with learning disabilities.

Two very sweaty 'girlie' teddy bears Kevin Coffey from Drimnagh and Arthur Kearns from Bluebell managed to raise €200 between them for Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin.

And those exhausted participants who didn't find it quite as easy as Sonia and struggled bravely to the finish line were looked after by the team of student physiotherapists who worked on their sore and injured limbs with ice packs and massages.