BY JOHN WALSHE
RUNNING her first cross-country since March 2020, Bandon athlete Fiona Everard produced an outstanding performance when taking the silver medal at her first attempt at the Cork Senior Cross-Country Championships held at Carrigadrohid near Macroom.
Up against the in-form Sinead O’Connor, winner of the Cork Mini-Marathon two weeks ago, Everard stayed with the Leevale athlete for three of the four tough laps that made up the 6km distance, and at the finish was just over a half-minute in arrears.
Her only recent race was a 5km at Carrigtwohill a month ago where she finished second to Bantry-born Hannah Steeds who was back in eighth on Sunday.
‘Yes, I’m delighted with that; it’s great to get back to cross-country running. I didn’t know how it would go as I’ve had a stress fracture over the past couple of years,’ said the Ballineen native who celebrated her 24th birthday on Friday.
An outstanding schools’ athlete with MICC, Dunmanway, Everard was also a member of the Irish junior team that competed at the 2017 European Cross-Country Championships in Slovakia. Now based in Galway where she attends the Institute of Technology, she is coached there by Matt Lockett, along with Ronan Duggan in Bandon.
Although running with the East Cork club, there was also a West Cork connection with the third-place finisher Fiona Santry as her father, Christy, is a native of the Pike, Clonakilty, and used to provide the road bowling notes for The Southern Star.
Amongst the juveniles to impress were Laoise Ni Conchuir, Bandon winner of the girls’ U10; Cormac Murphy and Liam O’Keeffe from the same club, first and second in the boys’ U10; Caoimhe Flannery (Skibbereen), winner of the girls’ U16; and Sean Lawton (Durrus), first in the combined boys’ U18 and junior race.
Meanwhile, earlier on Sunday long-time Bandon stalwart Carmel Crowley added to her many successes over the years when taking first place in the Janssen 6km (Cork BHAA) race at Little Island. Representing Stockhealth, Crowley finished 20 seconds ahead of Linda O’Connor from Carrigaline when winning in a time of 23:08.
