McCarthy’s historic victory
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.
And after halfway and three visits to the big hill that was a feature of the course, Robert Connolly (DSD), the last remaining challenger, dropped off the back and the leading trio had the race to themselves.
McCarthy was always biding his time waiting for the opportunity as Lombard drove it from the front.
Berkeley eventually accepted the bronze medal with open arms and, with just one lap of the 2,000m circuit remaining, McCarthy sprinted past his clubmate and stamped his authority on the race with every stride.
“I knew I would be strong for the last six minutes,” he said. “It was probably a bit unfair to Cathal but it was a championship and I needed to win more than anything else in my life.”
There was nobody more deserving in the field than the 29-year-old Cork man who has had the title on his mind since his disappointing performance in the inter-counties in December.
“I was consumed by that for three months,” he admitted and, in a desperate bid to make amends he went to South Africa to train at altitude for eight weeks at a personal cost of €3,000.
It was his first cross country title since he won the national junior inter-counties title 11 years ago before going to Iona College on scholarship. He won the national 10,000m track title in 1998.
Cathal Lombard, although he improved on last year’s bronze medal position, was bitterly disappointed with his performance.
“It was not the way I ran the race. I knew they both had finishing sprints and I tried to get away from them. But it was a slow race and I did not feel good. I had hoped to win the race and then persuade AAI to send me to the long course race at the world championships as an individual.
"But, on that performance, I don’t think I could do myself justice. If I go I would want to be sure I would finish in the top 50. To do that I would need to improve at least five per cent on that run today.”
The first two across the line were guaranteed places on the short course team for the world championships.
Martin McCarthy is training for a marathon debut in Berlin in September and would probably be more suited by the long course.
“I have been training for the marathon and that stood to me today,” he said.
“I know people will say the field was depleted on account of the absence of Seamus Power and Peter Matthews but I know today I would have been able to race with them.”
Anne Keenan-Buckley again destroyed the field right from the start.
She quickly dispensed with the attention of Maria McCambrridge (DSD) and Valerie McGovern (Donore) with Valerie Vaughan (Blarney/Inniscarra) and Annette Kealy (Raheny Shamrocks) adrift.
And in the end she had more than 50 seconds to spare over McCambridge but admitted that if the race had been run a day earlier she would not have been able to run.
“I have a rib cage problem which recurs now and again causes spasm in my stomach muscles and I had it for a few days.
"As a result I felt drained going into the race but I am glad I ran now,” she said.
Mark Christie took control of the junior men’s race after Leevale’s Mark Hanrahan had set the early pace and, from there on, there was just going to be one winner.
Only Paul Logan from Limerick has won this title three times in a row and he admitted he would like to win it again next year.
After doing his Leaving Certificate last year he took a year out to consider his future in athletics and his options as regards scholarships.
Fionnuala Britton led all the way to win the junior girls’ title for a third time with Linda Byrne (DSD) following her home for a second year and Michelle Gallagher coming over from California to finish third.
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