Bantry man wins Cork City Marathon

ALAN O’SHEA, tipped as a star of the future, took a giant step in the right direction yesterday when easily winning the Cork City Marathon.

The 26 year old Bantry man, who mixes his busy schedule as a doctor at the Mercy Hospital in Cork with his running, won in 2hrs 27 minutes 36 seconds. Run in hot and sometimes windy conditions the race was never going to produce fast times.

He had exactly four minutes to spare over the runner-up, Wieslaw Sosnowski, a Polish athlete who runs with Eagle Athletic Club in Cork City. Another experienced marathon runner, Roy Fahy, who now competes with East Cork AC, was third in 2:31.59 ahead of Colin Merritt (Togher AC), 2:33.12, and the experienced Cathal O’Connell (St Finbarr’s).

It was a huge step forward for Alan O’Shea. This year he has contested 16 races and won 13, including the national 10k championship in Navan, the prestigious Ballycotton 10 and the Glengarriffe to Bantry half marathon.

“But it is good to get the first marathon out of the way,” he said. “I did not know what to expect but today I felt fairly comfortable all the way and now I feel that I can start planning for the next one.”

He led the race from the start although he had runners like Cathal Lombard, who were running legs of the marathon relay that swelled the numbers participating to 4,000, pounding out a ferocious early pace ahead of him.

By halfway he had established his position firmly at the head of the field, reaching the 13-mile mark in 72mins 45secs. At that point Fahy was hanging on to second position ahead of Sosnowski and Cathal O’Connell.

“I was doing a steady 5.45 pace all the way,” O’Shea recalled. “When I came on to the straight road I was feeling very comfortable.

“There was great support out there and being from Cork it was great. But it was not really a day to do a fast time or anything like that. The objective was to win the race and I did that.”

Wieslaw Sosnowski was never going to catch the leader but he had Roy Fahy in his sights from a long way out. A former winner of the Longford Marathon, he was second again in Longford last year and was also runner-up in Connemara. He chose the decisive moment to overtake the former Leevale man who had three marathons behind him — he was a top 100 finisher in New York two years ago — and had 26 seconds to spare at the end.

Tracy Guilfoyle from Kilnaboy in North Clare led all the way to win the women’s title and achieved a target she set herself last year when the Cork City Marathon was announced.

Six weeks ago she finished 37th in the London Marathon in 2:56:03 and was competing in her 10th marathon yesterday.

She only took up competitive running six years ago when she was taking her children to Kilnaboy athletic club and she decided to start training.

“I met my husband, George, in London. He took me to Co Clare for a holiday 20 years ago and I have never gone back,” she said. “We have four children and the two girls are still involved in athletics.”

For much of yesterday’s race she was chased but never threatened by former international cross-country runner, Louise Cavanagh (UCC) and Angela Shine (Leevale). The former lost touch before halfway and Angela Shine finally succumbed to a leg injury that she brought into the race and faded to finish fifth. “It was a miracle that I got through it at all,” she said.

But before halfway the big threat emerged in the form of Mary O’Leary, a native of Castletownroche, but living in Munich for the past 20 years.

A daughter of a former Cork hurler, the late Cody O’Leary, she has run 11 marathons and since her first in Vienna when she was 19th, she has never been outside of the top 10.

“This was my first Irish marathon and it was in Cork so, from that point of view, it was important,” she said.

After passing halfway in 92 minutes she picked off the runners ahead of her, with the exception of the leader, between 18 and 20 miles to finish second in 3:07.51. Sinead Ni Conchuir was third in 3:11:35 with Ann Marie Holland next in 3:12:35 and Angela Shine fifth in 3:13:54. Nollaig Hunter (Leevale), who only started running six months ago when she began taking her children to the club, was sixth in 3:15:51.