National Juvenile Uneven Age Cross Country, Navan Racecourse, Co Meath.

St Abbans AC once again had a big crowd competing at the National Juvenile Cross Country Championships which were held in Navan Racecourse on Sunday. After a very difficult course in Gowran two weeks ago, Navan had much better underfoot conditions, but still threw up plenty of testing sections for athletes. On a day when medals are extremely difficult to come by, Will Duffy and Rachel Ayers performed brilliantly to bring home individual medals. As he has done all year, Will put himself in contention from the gun in the Boys U.15 3500m. Will remained with the leading group throughout, eventually coming home in an excellent 4th place to pick up his first national medal.  Rachel also had a super run in the Girls U.17, were she worked her way through the field picking up 5 places on the last lap for a super 12th place finish. Rachel was also a scoring member on the Leinster team who claimed silver medals. This will be especially satisfying for Rachel because she had been struggling with injury earlier in the year. Earlier in the day, Laura Ayres was unlucky not to pick up an individual medal finishing in 14th, but was a scoring member on the Leinster team who were 2nd province. The Girls U13 club team of Laura Ayers, Zoe Dunne, Leah Dunphy, Ellie Knowles and Mollie Kelly finished up as 11th club and 9th county overall. The Boys U11 team finished in 12th place with Daire O Sullivan, Liam Doyle, Edward McDonald, Páidí Murrin and Conor Kennedy battling hard around the 1500m race. In the Girl’s U15, the trio of Cara English, Chelsey Dooley and Katie Hartnett all packed closely over 3500m. The Boys U15 County team where the aforementioned Will Duffy was joined by Kalem Buggy and Eoghan Mitchell to take 8th County team overall. Will was also a scoring member on the Leinster team who placed 2nd. Finn Craig was the final athlete in action for the club, when he finished in 50th place in the Boys U17 4500m. For the Juvenile athletes, this brings to an end the Cross Country Season for 2023. For the senior athletes Cross Country will continue on with the Laois Senior Cross Country Championships scheduled to take place on the 17th December in Barrowhouse.