In a good day for Masters athletics on Saturday, Northern Ireland teams produced their best ever performance at the Masters International Cross Country, held this year in Dublin at Santry. There were silver medals for the men at M40 and M65 level, bronze medals for the women at F35 and F50 level and a host of good individual placings. North Down athletes played their full part with David Seaton and Fred Murdoch 1st and 3rd Northern Irish athletes in the M65 team, Francis Marsh 5th in the M40 team, Roberta Dornan 2nd in the F35″s, Terry Eakin 1st M60, Stephanie Hambling and Debbie Matchett 1st and 3rd F40 and Pat O”Driscoll 4th M60.
[Not a valid template]It was muddy underfoot throughout, but conditions were dry and sunny for the opening races but progressively worsened into heavy rain at the end. In the combined womens” race over 6K, Cathy McCourt led the NI girls in 23:12 min but Roberta Dornan in her best ever outing over the country was next in 24:02 taking a load of scalps in the process while Gillian Burns completed the scoring for the bronze medal. Stephanie led the F40″s in 24:54 and along with Jackie McGinley and Debbie in 25:15 were 4th team. With the M65″s in the same field David Seaton in 24:57 just edged Gerry Lynch with Fred Murdoch in 26:48 for a M65 team silver.
[Not a valid template]In the 8K M50-64 race, Terry Eakin led the NI contingent with 32:41, 5th in the age group. Pat O”Driscoll ran 46:41. M35- M40 also ran 8K in the by-now heavy rain. For the strong Northern Ireland team, Dave Morwood was 3rd in the category with Mark Wright 8th, Eamon White 9th, Stephen McGrory 11th and Francis Marsh 13th in 29:14 to end the day with another team silver.