Sweeney can retain title and nail down Slovenia place

JOE SWEENEY goes into tomorrow’s Woodies DIY national inter-county cross-country championships overwhelming favourite to retain the title he won in Derry last year.

The tall Dubliner went on to add the senior inter-clubs title after that under the astute guidance of his coach Jerry Kiernan, all the indications are he will run a big marathon in the not too distance future.

Right now his focus is on the cross-country season and the European championships in Slovenia in three weeks time. The first two across the line tomorrow gain automatic selection.

Current form would indicate Sweeney will lead them home. He highlighted his current wellbeing with an impressive win in the Gerry Farnan memorial in the Phoenix Park where he was followed home by Dan Mulhare (North Laois).

A couple of years ago, two days after coming down from his altitude training camp at Flagstaff, Andrew Ledwith, powered his way through the mud at Kilbeggan Racecourse to win the title. It was a sensational performance on a day that also saw Mary Cullen produce an equally impressive run in the women’s race.

Both those athletes disappointed in the European championships in Dublin a couple of weeks later — Ledwith coming down with a throat infection days before the event. Not so long afterwards he broke John Treacy’s 1985 10k road record when finishing second in the Desert News 10k.

While a student in the US he finished third for Mick Byrne’s Iona College team in the NCAA championships and he celebrated this week when his former coach led Wisconsin to the team title at the NCAA championships in Terre Haute.

Tomorrow Ledwith lines up for the inter-counties championships but said it will be pretty low key for him. He ran the National Lottery Dublin Marathon last month and completed the course in 2:30.01.

Last week he won the Podium 4 Sport Seeley Cup 10K in Belfast in 30:48 which would indicate he has recovered from the marathon. However, he insisted yesterday he will not pose any real challenge to big Joe Sweeney tomorrow.

“Joe (Sweeney) has to be the favourite for this race,” he said. “From my own point of view I am just running for the Meath team. I do not expect to do anything spectacular.”

David Rooney has been red shirted by the McNeese University coach who obviously wants to have him on the team for next year. John Coghlan, a member of the U23 team that won the European title, won the Dublin championship recently but two other members of that team, David McCarthy (West Waterford) and Brendan O’Neill (DSD) who were 41st and 52nd, respectively, in the NCAA’s, remain on in the US. McCarthy is in Providence College and O’Neill is spending a year in Florida State where Ciarán Ó Lionaird excelled last year.

With Fionnuala Britton racing Cross de L’Acier in Northern France and Mary Cullen and Deirdre Byrne recovering from injuries, Lizzie Lee (Leevale AC) could add the women’s title to the 5,000m title she won on the track earlier.