McCarthy’s historic victory

MARTIN McCARTHY (Leevale) put years of frustration behind him in a devastating last lap that earned him his first national senior cross-country championship title at historic and picturesque Avondale where Anne Keenan-Buckley (North Laois) retained her women’s title in style.

That was after Mark Christie (Mullingar) retained his junior men’s title and local girl, Fionnuala Britton (Sli Chualann) retained the junior women’s title.

With Seamus Power and Peter Matthews out of the line-up there was always going to be a new senior men’s champion and all the pointers were to a contest between the two Leevale clubmates, Martin McCarthy and Cathal Lombard and Noel Berkeley (DSD) who lives in Cork.