DCU Athletics Academy enjoyed success in the first intervarsity event of the year recently with the men’s team claiming gold while the ladies’ team took home silver.
The 2014 IUAA Road Relay Championships took place last week in NUI Maynooth and saw DCU’s men come away with another gold medal winning performance while the women had to settle for second place.
The men were defending their title after winning the competition last year and consisted of runners Darragh Lynch, David McCarthy, Brian Kelly and Cormac Kelly who were led by captain Joe Warne.
It was Lynch who got off to something of a tough start in this very competitive race as he ran in the first leg. Lynch finished the leg with a time of 4:27 which was only eight seconds behind the leader Shane Fitzsimons of Athlone IT.
AIT are newcomers to the competition and kept up their great start as they finished the second leg on top. DCU’s Joe Warne managed to claw his way up to third before handing off to David McCarthy.
McCarthy powered his way through his three laps with an impressive time of 13:28 which saw him in first place after overtaking AIT’s John Travers.
It then became a two horse race as DCU and AIT battled constantly but great running from Brian Kelly and Cormac Kelly saw DCU over the line. The victory on Saturday mean’s that DCU have now won seven of the last 10 races.
The women’s race also provided some great entertainment with the DCU team of Deirdre Doyle, Mary Mulhare, Maria O’Sullivan and Mary Ann O’Sullivan holding off UCC to finish second with UCD finishing with the gold medal.
Doyle ran a good first leg but it was UCD’s Ciara Everard who stormed into the lead. She was first to pass the baton followed by runners from UCC and UL with Doyle passing off in fourth place.
UCD continued their dominance in the second leg and never really looked back as the race for second place heated up between DCU and UCC.
DCU’s second leg was taken on by Mary Mulhare who fought hard but couldn’t catch up to UCC’s Sinead O’Connor before handing off to the third runners.
Maria O’Sullivan ran for DCU as she made up a lot of ground putting pressure on the UCC runner Orna Murrary with only 5 seconds splitting the two.
It was down to Mary Anne O’Sullivan to make up the lost ground for DCU and she did it in style as she ran a time of 5:08 to take home the silver medal for the DCU ladies.
The performances of both teams indicates another strong year ahead for DCU Athletics.
Aidan Delaney
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