Ronan Duggan
DCU’s male distance athletes were finally beaten after five years of undefeated competition at the recent road relays in Maynooth.
On the men’s side the lightning-quick opening mile of Joe Warne set the men’s A team well on their way to apparent victory. Chasing down all the way was UCD’s Richard Owens who stayed within three seconds of Warne.
Darren McBrearty took over the baton, but struggled to hold off the UCD athlete Dan King, while Emmet Jennings brought the B team into contention with an impressive 9.14 two mile leg.
That said, the race was about to be blown apart by former DCU student Joe Sweeney, now running in the UCD singlet, who destroyed the field with a mind-blowing 13:29 three mile run.
This was 36 seconds ahead of John Coughlan and it blew the doors off the DCU challenge and left them fighting for victory for the first time in five years.
Paul Robinson put in a solid performance to pull DCU within a very long shot on the final leg, but it still required a record breaking run from Mark English and although English ran a strong performance it was not to be enough to secure victory.
DCU’s B team consisting of Eoin Healy, Mark McDonald, Jayme Rossiter, Brian Kelly and that barnstorming leg from Emmet Jennings drove the B team into 3rd place.
In the women’s event, the DCU A team romped to victory after an impeccable performance from Laura Behan moved DCU ahead of rival contenders UCC.
DCU’s B team stayed in touch with UCC with a storming final leg from Ailish Brennan just falling short of snatching the silver medal.
Leave a Reply