BY JOHN WALSHE
FIONA Everard made a welcome return to local competition with an impressive victory at the Ballintotis four-mile road race, an event that attracted a massive turnout of 1,200 runners.
This race, held just off the N25 halfway between Midleton and Castlemartyr, is regarded as the opener of the Cork road season and usually attracts a top-class entry. With the winners from the past two years – Hannah Steeds and Lizzie Lee – absent, it was the 2023 Irish national cross-country champion Everard who dominated the race.
The Bandon athlete ran one of the fastest times in Ballintotis of 21:41 and no doubt if challenged she would have threatened Lee’s nine-year-old record of 21:22. She finished over a minute-and-a-half ahead of runner-up, Emma Fitzpatrick from Leevale.
Although somewhat disappointed with her fourth place in the national 10km in Dunboyne at the end of March, Everard’s time there of 33:36 wasn’t far off her best of 33:22 achieved at the same venue in 2024.
The four-mile distance, no doubt, brought back memories for the 26-year-old Enniskeane native as it was back in September 2022 at Carrigtwohill in a Cork BHAA race she had her first competitive outing after a number of frustrating years out through injury.
Later that year, Everard would go on to win the national novice cross-country at Conna and then, 11 months later, of course she caused one of the major upsets in Irish athletics when taking gold at the national senior cross-country at Kilkenny. International honours followed with Everard going on to represent Ireland in both the European and World cross-country championships.
