AAI Virtual Cross Country Club Challenge (Nov 2020)

Mullingar takes on the Virtual Cross Country Club Challenge

There was a palpable sense of excitement at the Club on Tuesday & Thursday evenings 17th & 19th November when races were held for our younger juvenile athletes as part of the “Virtual Cross Country Club Challenge”, an initiative of Athletics Ireland to give some competition outlet for our “race-starved” juveniles. Clubs taking part were to hold races on a flat course on any training night between 1st and 24th November, awarding every runner a race time, which are to be submitted this week to create a National results sheet. Having our own flat grass track at the Club was obviously ideal for holding the races. The top four fastest times in each age group is deemed the Club team, and there will be medals for the first ten in each age group across Ireland and the top three teams in each age group will receive medals. Girls and boys aged u/9 & 10 ran 500m together, u/11 ran 1,000m, u/13 ran 1,500m, as did u/15 girls and boys.

The 1,500m races were held on Tuesday 17th November and while the numbers were obviously a lot smaller than the usual hundred or more at a Leinster or National cross country event, the competition was still very keen and of course there were also bragging rights at stake! Though not taking part, the sprinters enjoyed watching during the recovery stages of their session on the sprint lanes, and were happy to provide some vocal support. On Thursday 19th November it was the turn of the younger ages running over 500m and 1,000m and given the big number of training “pods” at the 6pm sessions, there was tremendous excitement generated by the crowd of youngsters watching and cheering on each race.

We’ll submit the results to Athletics Ireland and wait for the National individual and team results in due course.