Power goes for eighth title

SÉAMUS POWER has dominated the national inter-counties cross-country chapionships for the past seven years, and there is nothing to indicate that he will not win a record eighth title at Donoughmore, Co Cork, tomorrow.

The challenge to his supremacy has been weakened by the withdrawal of two of the main contenders during the week. Keith Kelly, now back to his best after a year of injury, was to have returned to Ireland for the event but will now remain on in the US for the Manchester Road Race. Cathal Lombard (Leevale) would have gone into the race as favourite on the back of his big win in the Reebok Cross-Country Challenge in Birmingham a few weeks ago, but he was forced to withdraw during the week suffering from a virus which he said had just knocked the stuffing out of him.

The Dublin-based solicitor had beaten a high-class field in Birmingham and admitted that up to last Monday he was in the form of his life. Both he and Keith Kelly will be available for selection when the selectors name the teams for the European championships on Monday and it appears as if the man who could be Ireland’s new middle distance sensation, Alastair Cragg, a South African of Irish extraction, will also be on the short list. A student at the University of Arkansas, he will be one of the medal favourites in the NCAA championships on Monday.

The man who could upset the applecart tomorrow is Leevale’s Martin McCarthy. He fought out a memorable duel with Séamus Power in the mud in Cavan a few years back and appeared to have him well and truly beaten half-a-mile from the finish only to see the teak-tough Clareman come back from the dead to snatch victory inside the final 400 metres in what was a classic duel. They have seldom crossed paths since, but in the national inter-club championships in February when Peter Matthews pipped Power in a mudbath, Cathal Lombard, his younger brother Fiachra and their Leevale clubmate, Martin McCarthy, finished strongest of all to fill the three places behind.

Since then both Fiachra Lombard and Martin McCarthy have had their injury problems. But the younger Lombard, now based in Birmingham, bounced back to finish second in the Reebok Challenge in Liverpool where he was just pipped on the line in his bid to duplicate his brother’s Birmingham success. He will be a big challenger in Dounoughmore and so too will Martin McCarthy who came back of injury to help London Irish to second place out of 171 teams in the English relays running a blinding second leg that saw him turn a 45 second deficit to an 11 second advantage.

The other big challengers will be Northern athletes Dermot Donnelly and Gareth Turnbull. Donnelly finished eighth in the English trials last weekend while Turnbull, who trained last month with Mark Carroll and Keith Kelly in the US, was eighth in Ghent the weekend before last when Power finished well ahead in third position.

Anne Keenan-Buckley will be going for her third title in a row in the women’s race where her main challenger will be Cork’s Valerie Vaughan (Blarney/Inniscarra) who has won this event twice and competed alongside the defending champion in the world championship teams that won bronze medals in Turin and Leopardstown this year.

When they last met in the women’s mini marathon in Cork in September the Blarney athlete came out on top and since then she has reclaimed the county senior cross-country title.

Anne Keenan-Buckley had her first cross-country race in Ghent two weeks ago where, like Séamus Power, she finished third with a string of world class athletes behind her.

Last Saturday she took part in the British and Irish Masters International in Ballymena where she won the title for the fourth successive year.

It has not yet been decided whether or not junior men’s and junior women’s teams will be sent to the European championships but the first across the line in each race on Sunday will travel.