Superb victory for James King

Donegal's leading junior male middle distance runner, James King, recorded his first ever victory on the Donegal Athletics Board Grand Prix Series on Friday night when breaking the tape in the Ramelton 5K.

In arguably the most keenly contested race of the local road season do far, the teenager managed to hold off the late charge of Letterkenny AC's Ciaran Doherty at the end of an intriguing battle which saw Finn Valley's Kieran Carlin assume pole position around the middle of the race. At the end, Carlin showed all his experience to stay ahead of the fast finishing Marty Kelly of Letterkenny - the former finishing in 16:00, with the latter just a second slower. Just 30 seconds behind his older brother and race winner was Dan King. The St Eunan's College student, who is just 15, finished fifth in a superb time of 16:16.

Clodagh McCool, who ran a personal best of 17:12 on her last 5K outing two weekends earlier in Rathmullan, was again a comfortable winner of the senior women's section in 18:05, with Helen Leonard second in 18:53.

The winning times were somewhat slower than the respective course records - Charlie Gallagher of Finn Valley posted 15:16 last year while Letterkenny's Margaret Synott clocked 17:28 in 2003. Finn Valley's Pat Hegarty was the quickest veteran male in 16:45, with Louise Finnegan from Letterkenny AC the leading veteran woman in 19:23.

The next round of the grand prix series takes place next Sunday, with the Danny McDaid 15K in Letterkenny which has an 11 am start at the Oldtown Bridge.

The full list of finishers and times for the Ramelton 5K are as follows:

1. James King, 15:46. 2. Ciaran Doherty, 15:51. 3. Kieran Carlin, 16:00. 4. Marty Kelly, 16:01. 5. Dan King, 16:16. 6. Kieran Gallagher, 16:22. 7. Ivan Toner, 16:22. 8. Michael Black, 16:29. 9. Pat Hegarty, 16:45. 10. Billy Gallagher, 16:55. 11. Anthony Dorrian, 16:58. 12. Simon Ward, 17:08. 13. Gerry McMonagle, 17:21. 14. Martin Gormley, 17:37. 15. Ciaran Crawford, 17:48. 16. Hugh Duffy, 17:56. 17.Clodagh McCool, 18:05. 18. Joe English, 18:06. 19. Michael Penrose, 18:17. 20. Bernard McCabe, 18:20. 21. Stephen Gibson, 18:32. 22. Brendan Boyce, 18:37. 23. Dan Mooney, 18:37. 24. Helen Leonard, 18:53. 25. Michael Duffy, 19:13. 26. Philip Buchanan, 19:14. 27. Darren Murray, 19:19. 28. Gregory Campbell, 19:20. 29. Manus Peoples, 19:22. 30. Louise Finnegan, 19:23. 31. Richard Raymond, 19:23. 32. David O'Brien, 19:33. 33. Mark Bolton, 19:57. 34. Sean Murray, 20:06. 35. Mark Bolton, 19:57. 36. Jimmy Gildea, 20:20. 37. Pat McCrudden, 20:38. 38. Zoe Melling, 20:43. 39. Fionnuala Diver, 20:47. 40. Margaret Burns, 21:21. 41. Eunan Gillespie, 20:40. 42. Dessie Black, 23:04. 43. Brian Murray, 25:10. 44. Mary Martin, 25:18. 45. Gloria Donaghey, 25:47. 46. Paul Engles, 26:11.

Newsletters by Bernie Alcorn, Club P.R.O.