In-form Britton and Sweeney head Irish hopes for Euros

Fionnuala Britton and Joe Sweeney, fresh from impressive performances over the weekend, form a strong backbone to the Irish team for the European Cross-Country Championships to be held near Budapest on Sunday week.

Britton travels as defending champion and will be confident of winning another gold medal after being denied victory by two top Ethiopians in the Cross de L’Acier in northern France on Sunday.

Sweeney comes back a stronger and better equipped runner than when he came so close to winning a medal in Slovenia last year when he was a closing fifth place finisher, just two seconds off the bronze medal.

There was clear proof of Sweeney’s well-being when he retained his inter-counties title in Ratoath over the week-end.

“My training workouts started to come around weeks ago and the work has been getting quicker and quicker,” said the Dubliner.

“From this run I know I’m in fantastic shape and I think I have a lot more room for improvement, and hopefully that will happen in the Euros.”

Britton’s weekend run, if anything, was even more exciting after she chased Elyse Tadese and Almensa Belet across the line, just a few seconds back, with the former European junior and U 23 champion, Binnaz Uslu of Turkey some 33 seconds away fourth.

Last year Britton won by seven seconds from Dulce Felix of Portugal, who in July won the European 10,000 metres in Helsinki with Britton a disappointed fourth. But Britton is a different proposition on the country.

Britton is being joined in the front ranks of the Irish team by the new inter-counties champion, Ava Hutchinson of Dundrum SD, with Sweeney having a couple of strong team-mates too in Michael Mulhare, Brendan O’Neill and David Rooney (two members of the Irish gold medal winning team in the U23 event two years ago) and will push for a team medal.

This time the U23 team will be led by Chris Johnson of Letterkenny while the women’s squad is captained by Una Britton, fresh from her performance on Sunday.

Ireland will also be represented in both men’s and women’s junior championships with a group of new and somewhat inexperience athletes but as new Team Manager, Theresa McDaid, said yesterday they have all put in the work in preparation of “measuring up” to this fresh challenge which is attainable without the feared Africans.