Fagan and Christie on course for Euros

MULLINGAR clubmates Martin Fagan and Mark Christie could be reunited on the Irish cross-country team for the first time since 2001 when the squad for next month’s SPAR European Cross-Country Championships in Tilburg is announced.

Fagan broke the 27 year-old course record at New York’s Van Cortlandt Park to win the Big East Conference title and complete an exciting double for Irishman Ray Treacy, the Head Coach at Providence College, who also had the winner of the women’s race in New Zealander Fiona Crombie.

The Mullingar man led all the way to win in 23 mins 48 secs.

Fagan, who had fourth and fifth placings over 5,000m and 10,000m at the European U23 championships in the summer, has laid claim to pre-selection alongside Alistair Cragg for the European cross-country championships.

Now Mark Christie is hoping to win his Euro place at the national inter-counties championships in Sligo at the end of the month. The last time the two Mullingar men were on the same team was at the European junior championships in Thun in 2001 when Fagan led for much of the race and eventually finished a couple of places ahead of Christie.

Christie went on to win three national junior titles after that and finish sixth in the European junior race in Edinburgh and fifth in Germany.

Fagan went to join Treacy’s squad at Providence but Christie went to DCU to join former international Enda Fitzpatrick’s squad.

He launched his seasonal campaign as part of the DCU team invited to the Lotto Cross Cup cross-country meeting at Wachtebeke, Belgium, on Sunday when he finished 14th in 29:01 behind Tom Van Hooste from Belgium, who won in 28:05.

“It was just an OK opener,” he said yesterday. “I found myself off the back of the pack and leading a chasing group. I have to get used to running over 10k. I suffered for a couple of laps and then pulled it out on the last lap.”

He will run the three mile leg at the inter-varsities relays in two weeks time before the inter-counties where he will chase a place on the team for the Europeans.

It was a great weekend for the DCU athletes who competed in Belgium. Linda Byrne was an impressive winner of the junior women’s race, breaking clear on the last lap to win by 19 seconds from local favourite, Barbara Maveau. She covered the 4,500m course in 15:52. Jessica Sparke from Britain was third in 16:24 with Ellen Diskin 19th and Ciara Durkin 31st.

Danny Darcy came off a heavy training schedule to finish third in the junior men’s race over 6.700m in 22:03. He battled it out with the winner, Keith Gerard from Britain, for 5k and was overtaken for second place by another British runner, Anthony Moran, 600m from the finish.

Eoin McCormack was 16th, James King 19th, Limerick man Cathal Dennehy 27th and Des Earls 35th.

Fionnuala Brittain, a former three time national junior champion, fought her way back from a disastrous start to finish seventh in the senior women’s race over 6,000m in 21:13.

Nathalie De Vos won in 20:31 from Veerle Dejaehere, both Belgians, with Sabrina Mockenhaupt from Germany third. Niamh Devlin finished 20th.

Dave Kelly finished 18th in the senior men’s race, Eoin Higgins was 27th, Ian Chaney 35th and Kevin English 45th.

All the athletes, with the exception of Kelly and English in the senior men’s race, are members of the DCU team invited to compete in the Lotto Cross Cup series.

Aoife Cooke from Youghal AC, a student at Arkansas Tech Golden Suns, set a new school record when she won the South Regional title at the Little Everglades Ranch and become Tech’s first ever regional champion in cross-country.

She has now set five schools records this season, three at 5k and two at 6k, and becomes the first female athlete from Arkansas Tech to qualify for the NCAA cross-country championships. She is coached at Tech by former Waterford athlete Tom Aspel.

Damien Bateman from Mullingar Harriers, a senior at McNiece State where he has been injured for three years, bounced back to finish second in their conference meet - producing the best performance for the college since his Mullingar Harriers clubmate, Tom McGrath, won the title.

AAI are sending a team to compete in Tilburg at the weekend when they will have an opportunity to view the course for the European cross-country championships.

Travelling will be national champions Gary Murray and Jolene Byrne who will be joined by Joe McAllister, Orla O’Mahony, Maria McCambridge, Aoife Byrne, Breffni Twohig, schools track champions Sarah Treacy and Brendan O’Neill and Michael Clohessy. Ciaran Ó Lionaird and David McCarthy were not available.