THE Irish Universities (IUAA) cross-country championships at Dundalk IT saw another brilliant run by West Muskerry athlete Saoirse Twomey, who took the bronze medal in her first appearance in the UCC colours, writes John Walshe.

Twomey, the runaway winner of the Cork County U20 race six days before, also led her UCC colleagues to the team title, the first time they have won since 2015.

After finishing second to DCU the past two years, UCC turned the tables on this occasion to win with just four points to spare over their Dublin rivals. 

The West Muskerry athlete was backed up by the Leevale duo of Emma Fitzpatrick (ninth) and Hannah Smith (13th) with Bandon’s Olive O’Flynn the fourth scorer in 16th position.

Just two places and two seconds behind O’Flynn was Aoife Lucey, also from the West Muskerry club. Skibbereen’s Caoimhe Flannery – like Saoirse in her first year at university and running for UG – also had an excellent run to finish fifth overall over the 5km course.

There was no rest for Aoife Lucey as 24 hours later she finished second at the Cork County Novice championships at Conna, 29 seconds behind winner Evita Volginaite from  Glanmire AC.

Aoife also led her West Muskerry colleagues Hannah Murphy (11th), Karena McCarthy (16th) and Deb O’Donovan (27th) to team honours, four points ahead of Togher.

There was further success for West Muskerry as the team of Eanna Duff (sixth). Gemma O’Mahony (seventh), Siobhan Ni Bhrian (eighth) and Sarah Neville (12th) took the honours in the U19 race.

Bandon AC were winners of the boys U13 title, the team consisting of Aidan Clifford (seventh), James Quirke (eighth), Noah Dunne (ninth) and Joshua Dunne (11th).

Individual medals were won by Sean O’Leary from Bandon, first in the U9 race, and Emily Hickey of West Muskerry who took the silver in the U11 category.