Offaly woman performs heroics with super 8th place finish at European U23 Cross Country Championships

A PROMISING young Offaly athlete produced the run of her life when finishing a superb eight at the European U-23 Cross Country Championships in Brussels on Sunday.

Danielle Donegan performed better than she had hoped as she worked her way up the field to get into the top twenty and then the top ten. She had targeted a finishing place in the top twenty but with the wet and mucky conditions suiting her, she ended up in eight place.

A member of Tullamore Harriers, Donegan had finished 28th in the same event in Turin last year and 31st in 2021 in Dublin. She was also the first Irish woman home last year but her eight place finish represented a significant and quite dramatic improvement.

Donegan ran a time of 27.24 for the gruelling 7k course, 1.52 minutes behind the winner, Britain's Megan Keith. She was three seconds behind the 7th placed Jana Van Lent, Belgium and five seconds ahead of Netherlands' Emmy Van Den Berg, who was ninth.

Her Tullamore Harriers club mate, Ava O'Connor was 63rd with the Emo woman posting 30.40.

A student at UCD, Donegan is currently in a rich vein of form and performed heroics when finishing third in the senior race at the national Cross Country Championships in Gowran, Kilkenny a few weeks ago – she was first U-23.

With Anika Thomspon of Leevale in 46th and O'Connor 63rd, Ireland couldn't build on Donegan's great run and get into team medals contention, finishing 11th.

This is her last year as an U-23 and she will now be competing in senior ranks. Donegan is a member of a unique Tullamore running family – unique in the sense that most of the family have concentrated on athletics as their sport of choice rather than other team sports. Her parents John and Marie are long time members of Tullamore Harriers and her siblings have also competed well in running events – older sister Nadine was an excellent sixth in the recent national senior cross country.

Older brothers Jason and Mark have posted some very good times on the local circuit while younger brother Jack and sister Rachel have also been bitten by the running bug.

A delighted Danielle Donegan admitted that she surpassed her own expectations after Sunday's race.

“I definitely surprised myself out there today. Coming into it, I had hoped for a top twenty, after the last two years of being around thirtieth. Once I saw the muck out there today and we jogged on the course yesterday, I knew it was going to suit me and I thought top fifteen then but I definitely outdone my expectations out there.

“It was brutal out there. It was as bad as Gowran down in Kilkenny for the nationals, the muck was everywhere. There were some patches of good ground but it was all on the outside so after two laps, I decided to just plough through the muck. That is where you caught people because people were going wide. That helped me a bit as well.”

There was a large Irish support at the Brussels venue, including several of her own family and Tullamore Harriers' colleagues.

She smiled: “The Irish support was amazing out there. There were people cheering you everywhere. There were about 20 from my club at home, the Tullamore Harriers. They were all around the course and my family and friends were here too. It was amazing out there with the support.”

The dream now will be to reach this level in senior ranks but Donegan knows that will take a lot of work.

“Hopefully, it won't be easy. Maybe in another good few years. I will just try and progress through the ranks and maybe make a few senior teams.”

Donegan's run was one of the big highlights on a very good day for the Irish team. Fionnuala McCormack had a great run to finish fourth in the senior womens' race. Nick Griggs was third in the mens' U-20 race, leading Ireland to a fantastic team gold while the senior mens' team also performed heroics to finish a very brave fourth. Mullingar's Cormac Dalton led them home in eight place and they were in the bronze medal position heading into the final lap of the 9k race but couldn't hang on as Norway came through for bronze – behind Belgium and France.