Belfast athlete Cathy McCourt proved the star of the 18-strong Irish team at the World Masters Athletics Championships in Perth, Australia. McCourt began her campaign on the opening day of the 10-day competition when she finished second in the W40 cross-country. She also helped the Irish team to silver, backed up by Dubliner Sue Zlnay, a long time Australian resident, and race walker Anne Gormley of Donore Harriers.
On the track, she finished third in the 5000m with a time of 18 mins 19.30 secs and then third also in the 10,000m in 40:33.50. After a few days rest, McCourt lined out in the half marathon, an event she had run for the first time last year. In this she finished second in 1:24:59 for her fifth medal of the championships. Winning the race was the super consistent Australian, Belinda Martin, a six times world champion, who had made a clean sweep of the distance medals ahead of McCourt.
For McCourt, a promising junior who only came back to athletics at the age of 32, it was a fairytale to a year when she thought injury might sideline her permanently.
In total, Ireland wo
n eleven medals. Taking the only Irish gold was Sean Cooney from Tara AC, winner of the M75 marathon on the final day of competition. Earlier Cooney had finished 5th in the 5000m and run in the cross-country. Taking silver in the W70 5000m was Evelyn McNelis from Naas.
Multi-eventer Geraldine Finnegan of North East Runners was second in the W50 pentathlon with a points total of 5441 behind Finland’s Kirsti Siekkinen on 5654 points. These two were the class of the field. Finnegan had opened her campaign by finishing fourth in the 2000m steeplechase. She also took silver in the 300m hurdle and bronze in the high hump, as well as finishing 4th in the javelin and 6th in the 80m hurdles. Another silver went to Ernest Caffrey in the M80 long jump.There was also team bronze for the M35 trio of Joe Cawley 2:58.26 (7th M40), Fintan Diviney 3:45.07 (17th M45) and Jason Keenahan 3:49.29 (9th M40).
In other notable performances, Tim Shiels of Derry TC missed out on a medal by 11/100th second in the M40 800m when he finished fourth in 2:02.00. Denis Coughlan was also agonisingly close to a medal in the M35 800m. Mullingar’s John McMullin was 5th in the M70 10,000m walk and seventh in the 20km walk a few days later. Ken Morley was 5th in the M40 10,000m with a time of 36:28.55, followed by John Russell 7th in 36:43.78. Sue Zlany was 7th in the W55 5000m with a time of 22:09.67. Lucy Moore of DSD finished sixth in the W55 hammer with a best of 29.07m and was also 10th in the shot and 15th in the weight throw. Ronan Kearns of Rathfarnham WSAF was 7th in the M35 1500m.
Full results http://results.simplyregister.net/Perth2016/
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