Carmel Parnell, competing in the Irish and British vets cross country championships, ran another tremendous race to win the over 45 category to add to an ever increasing list af achievements. Organisation of the event wasn’t the greatest, but that didn’t stop Leevale’s super vet. The race was won by former Leevale runner Niamh O’Sullivan who now runs for Riocht. Niamh’s time was 22:40 for the 6,000m race, a longer than usual distance for the competitors, while Carmel was 6th overall in the race with a time of 23:18.
Cork County Board hosted a function in Silver Springs hotel last Friday night to acknowledge the achievement of Cork athletes who competed for Ireland in the past year. AAI President Michael Heery was present to make the awards to twenty five athletes, which included ten from Leevale, a fantastic achievement.
The Leevale ten are; Mark Carroll, Derval O’Rourke, Niamh Cremin, Deirdre Murphy, Jer O’Donoghue, Mark Hanrahan, Kathleen Fitzgerald, Ailis McSweeney, Aisling Maunsell and Amy Clarke. Underage athletes are not included in the awards, otherwise the Leevale representation would be doubled!
Best of luck to the Leevale athletes competing in the national cross country championships in Dungarvan tomorrow. Start time see the senior women off at 1:15pm, followed by junior women at 1:45pm, junior men at 2:10pm and senior men at 2:40pm.