News Item

Colleges Championship

Sunday February 1 - Joe Lalor

NUIG takes Irish Colleges Championship for the second year in a row. With the three man team of O’Donnell, Watson and Crowley packing very well they were too strong for teams from WIT (2nd) UCD B&A (3rd & 4th) and NCAD (5th). The Ladies Team race was won by University of Ulster who narrowly held off the ladies from UCD. The fist man in the college section was Niall Sherlock representing Maynooth and first lady Eimear O’Brien UCD.

This race is run in conjunction with the Winter League and although the number overall running is very healthy at 95 the numbers of students it attracts continues to disappoint.

What can be done? One suggestion mentioned by several people that it is too early in the year, colleges are just starting up again or in the case of UL are on exams. Would the college race run with WL5 in mid. Feb. do any better? Another suggestion (I will not say by whom is that 11.00 is too early in the morning for students). Watching the way that they ran today I think we can safely discard that notion. A Saturday race was also mentioned, I know we tried that the first year we ran a Winter League and we had half our normal open runners. Anyone with helpful suggestions please submit them and they will at least be considered.