Star of the Sea AC held their 21^st Annual Cross Country Meeting in glorious sunshine on the hills of East Meath last Sunday, writes Brendan Meade.

The 700 visitors to Greenanstown were treated to great racing through all age groups from the U9’s to the last race on the programme the senior men’s race. Once again we had athletes from as far apart as East Cork to Newry and were particularly well supported by our neighbouring counties of Westmeath, Louth, Kildare & Dublin. The club would like to thank our sponsors FBD Insurances and all our volunteers on the day that help to make the event run so smoothly.

The Star of the Sea juvenile athletes did themselves proud by putting in plenty of good performances for their home race with Hannah Tully, Cian Cunningham, Rob Tully, Jim Marry and Ciaran McGinley all earning podium positions. The U11 girl’s team were 3^rd and the U15 boys were easy winners with 3 athletes finishing in the top six places.

Orla Timmins (Star of the Sea) retained her women’s 3k title with a convincing win over Sharon Monaghan (Fr. Murphy AC).  After the first lap of this two-lap race Sharon & Orla had opened up a lead on the chasing runners of Ursula Byrne (Dunshaughlin) and Mary Watters (Navan) but as they moved to the penultimate hill Orla’s strength told and she pulled away from Sharon. She continued to press home her advantage on the final hill and finished out an easy winner.

The men’s race over 6k was a tremendous race with 57 athletes taking to the line and 54 managing to finish the tough 4lap course. After the first lap a group of four including Colin Cotello, Jake Byrne (Mullingar) Martin Quinn (Dunleer) and Sean McGrath (East Cork) who had come up that morning especially to get a cross country race had opened up a gap on the rest of the field. Each of the four athletes prodded and poked in turn to test who had the resolve to win the race over the second lap but going out on the third lap Quinn and Costello looked to have upped the pace and there seemed to be cracks developing in Byrne & McGrath. However as they approached the lowest point of the course the group were back together again.  As they came down the hill to take the bell Costello who is only back from injury was finding the pace a little too hot and had dropped off the group. At the penultimate hill Quinn made a break. His break however was not decisive and Byrne & McGrath reeled him back in. With 800m to go this trio were together getting ready for the final climb. As they started the final climb the Mullingar man made his move and edged out a lead that he maintained all the way to the finish with the McGrath finishing 2^nd and Quinn 3^rd in a thrilling race.

Full results and photos are available on our website http://community.meath.ie/starofthesea/