National Medals Galore for Finn Valley Athletes in Athlone

Our juvenile athletes were once again to the fore in National competition competing in the All-Ireland Juvenile Cross-country Relays and the B Cross-country Championships in Athlone last weekend.

Double Gold and Silver in Cross-Country Relays

Gerry Boyle and Christopher McBride from Finn Valley joined Mark English, Letterkenny and Adam Friel, Milford to take the Gold medals in the U12 Inter-County cross-country relays. A great result for these very talented young Donegal athletes who were all to the fore earlier in the season individually and teamwise at National level as well.

The U14 Boys Donegal team in the relays was made up from Ryan McDaid, Ian Ward, Kevin Mossey -- all Finn Valley, and their good friend from Milford Dan King. This talented quartet also won the Gold medals continuing their winning ways.

The U12 Girls Donegal relay team was made up from Niamh Doherty and Karen Ferguson -- Finn Valley, and the McElwaine twins from Milford and they put in a terrific performance to win the silver medals.

The U14 Girls were very unlucky to miss out on medals just beaten on the line for 3rd place despite a heroic effort by Bronagh O'Doherty. The County team was made up entirely of Finn Valley athletes namely, Bronagh, Breda McGinty, Tara Hegarty and Jackie Gibson.

B Cross-country Championships

U13 Girls

The U13 Girls brought more medals back to the club with Fionnuala Lindsay having her best race of the season to take an individual medal in 4th place. Fionnuala led her Finn Valley team-mates of Gemma Vance, Aoife Whelan, Clara Dunnion, Mairead McGill and Andrea McCafferty to Silver medals. Donegal finished 4th in the Inter-County section.

U13 Boys

Philip Brown also had his best race of the season winning the bronze medal in the U13 race leading his team to 5th place. Dermot Brennan, Niall Doherty and Michael Penrose were the other scorers. Donegal finished 4th in the Inter-County section.

U17 Boys

Stefan Connolly had a great run winning an individual medal in 8th place and leading his club team to Bronze medals. The medal-winning team were Stefan, Maurice Boyle, Enda Doherty, Conor McConnell, Brian Patton and Ronan McCabe.

U15 Girls

Maeve Culhane was our leading scorer here with a good run in 20th place leading her team of Fionnuala Bruton, Shauna Guthrie, Laura Wilson, Natasha Duffy and Bronagh Sweeney to 5th place both in the Club and County Championships.

U15 Boys

We only had one competitor in this race: Conor McNulty, who ran well to finish in 35th place.

U11 Girls

Finn Valley finished 12th and Donegal 4th in the U11 Girls Championships with good runs from Tori Lafferty, Rochelle Tourish, Madeline Penrose, Ciara McGarvey and Louise McCafferty.

U11 Boys

Finn Valley finished 8th and Donegal 4th in this race with strong runs from Justin Brown, Dean Bonner, Kevin Smith, Paul Kelly, Ryan Porter, and Kyle Tourish.

Ulster/Northern Ireland Senior Cross-country next weekend

The first every joint Ulster/Northern Ireland Senior Cross-country Championships will be held in Coleraine on Saturday. Good luck to all our Senior athletes.

Nenagh

Ann McGill will be competing in Nenagh at the Masters Indoor Championships this weekend; we wish her the best of luck.

Tracksuits

Please note that the new Finn Valley tracksuits are still available in all sizes at the Centre.

Training

Training continues at 7.30 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursdays and Sunday mornings at 10.30 p.m. It is expected that all juvenile athletes who wish to compete in the up-coming Ulster Indoor Championships and the Scottish Indoor Championships be at every training session from now on.

Bernie Alcorn, P.R.O.