Victory for St. Brendan’s Girls in the Inaugural Pauline Curley Inter Schools Marathon Relay.

Friday last (October 23rd) saw the staging of the inaugural Pauline Curley Inter Schools Marathon Relay for girls in Offaly. With five post primary schools competing, it became apparent from the start that the girls of St. Brendan’s Community School in Birr were going all out for victory. Leading by 600m after the first three miles of the run, the only question on everyone’s mind was whether they could maintain such a substantial lead. Not only was the lead maintained but it continued to grow throughout the run, and St. Brendan’s girls romped home almost 10 minutes clear of all other schools in the end. The battle for runners up, which was eventually secured by the Sacred Heart Secondary School, Tullamore was much closer with only four minutes separating 2nd and 5th places.

The inter schools marathon relay for girls project was developed by the Offaly Sports Partnership in consultation with local Olympian, Pauline Curley to support increased participation of teenage girls in sport. It is based on a similar international competition for children developed by George Bunner of the Amateur Athletic Association in the UK. Eamonn Henry, Coordinator with Offaly Sports Partnership explained that the challenge was to see if 21 girls sharing a marathon run, passing running duties from one to another after every 200m, could run the distance faster than Pauline Curley’s personal best time. The second challenge was to see which school team could record the faster overall time. Each school competed on their own grounds and race officials sent periodic times to the event coordinator who in turn sends times for all schools back to the five locations.

“All five schools finished the challenge in under two and a half hours, well ahead of Pauline’s time”, said Mr. Henry. “The Birr girls however had a phenomenal run coming home ahead of Paula Radcliffe’s world record for the distance”.

Asked to explain why Birr had such a comprehensive victory Eamonn felt there were a number of reasons for this. “I think Birr decided it wanted to win while other schools were happy to complete the challenge. Some schools confined their teams to certain classes like Transition Years or the non exam years. Birr took what was possibly the strongest selection it could from across all years. They certainly put in the training for the event; they had more supporters out and they used the rule permitting pacemakers which other schools didn’t”.

John Treacy, CEO of the Irish Sports Council and 1984 Olympic silver medallist attended for the first half of the runs in the two Tullamore schools and commented positively on the project. Jimmy Dunne, PE teacher in Birr paid tribute to Pauline and to the Sports Partnership for organising the event. He said that what Pauline had achieved as a true amateur was an inspiration. “We need to do more to encourage girls to participate in sport and this event should be run every year”, he said.

The participating teams and times achieved were as follows:

Target time: 2:39.05 (Pauline Curley’s personal best achieved in Rotterdam in 2008 which qualified her to run at the Beijing Olympics)

St. Brendan’s Community School, Birr: 2:13.08
Team: 1 Orlagh Kirwan, 2 Megan Parsons, 3 Olivia Hogan, 4 Tracy Milne, 5 Kelly Ann Milne, 6 Leanne Mahon, 7 Natasha Mahon, 8 Paulina Ubowska, 9 Emily Quinlan, 10 Rebekah Carroll, 11 Ann Marie Guinan, 12 Muire Kennedy, 13 Iona Nichol, 14 Bronagh Rigney, 15 Eimear Mooney, 16 Hayley Ryan, 17 Emma Maloney, 18 Áine Kinsella, 19 Valerie Carroll, 20 Meave Monaghan, 21 Rachel Brennan.
Subs: Sinéad Garland, Grace King, Kayleigh Shiels, Hannah Corrigan, Shauna Byrne, Shauna Carroll, Jessica Davies, Eve Alexander, Joanne Lyons

Sacred Heart Secondary School, Tullamore: 2:23.00
Team: 1 Aoife Dempsey, 2 Ciara Izuchkwo, 3 China Sorbie, 4 Sinéad Rigney, 5 Anna Carmody, 6 Chloe Kelly, 7 Orla Bailey, 8 Rachel Keyes, 9 Melissa Sheehan, 10 Laura Buggle, 11 Alex Davis, 12 Ciara Murray, 13 Faith Akinbode, 14 Leanne Farrelly, 15 Emer Kelly, 16 Áine Deegan, 17 Aoife Buckley, 18 Zoe Coady, 19 Noelle Cocoman, 20 Maeve Coleman, 21 Paula Grennan.
Subs: Tara Henry, Charlotte Feery, Meghan McDonagh, Venuri Perrera, Áine Guilfoyle, Orla O’Callaghan, Shauna Moran, Elaine Leavy, Leigh Harbour, Cianna Brown

Tullamore College: 2:25.38
Team: 1 Rebecca Jordan, 2 Anne Berry, 3 Michelle Molloy, 4 Laura Scally, 5 Niamh McNamara, 6 Lauren Dunne, 7 Marie Bracken, 8 Amber McGuire, 9 Fiona McKenna, 10 Ciara Geraghty, 11 Sinéad O’Dwyer, 12 Shannon Hinch, 13 Roma Tal, 14 Siofra McNamara, 15 Niamh Mooney, 16 Tamara Daly, 17 Niamh Jones, 18 Nina Kusjada, 19 Jodie Bermingham, 20 Glynn McCloskey, 21 Leanne Dempsey.
Subs: Shauna Cuskelly, Elizabeth Nash, Jane Scally, Yoshi Nolan, Catherine Ward, Robin Maher, Shauna Nicholson

Presentation Secondary School, Killina: 2:26.34
Team: 1 Nicole Cuskelly, 2 Michelle Guinan, 3 Ellen Godly, 4 Annie Kehoe, 5 Ciara White, 6 Eimear Rikard, 7 Sarah Byrne, 8 Margaret Gath, 9 Katie Looby, 10 Sarah Condron, 11 Lisa Stewart, 12 Tiffany Tierney, 13 Lorraine Looby, 14 Aisling Seery, 15 Sarah Boland, 16 Tríona McDonald, 17 Davina Bryant, 18 Aisling Molloy, 19 Noelle Minnock, 20 Michelle McLoughlin, 21 Sarah Bryant.
Subs: Ciara Ryan, Niamh Hackett, Kelly Cunningham

St. Mary’s Secondary School, Edenderry: 2:27.08
Team: 1 Catherine O’Malley, 2 Leonie Walsh, 3 Rachel Kelly, 4 Sarah Lloyd, 5 Jenny Mulligan, 6 Sarah Carberry, 7 Jessica Deane, 8 Patricia Lyons, 9 Jennifer Conlon, 10 Niamh Lawless, 11 Karen Cummins, 12 Beth Bergin, 13 Rachel Kennedy, 14 Niamh McNamee, 15 Megan Furey, 16 Laura Whelan, 17 Alison Nolan, 18 Kym Furey, 19 Aisling O’Connor, 20 Shauna O’Donoghue, 21 Ciara Furey.
Subs: Aisling McKeown, Jade Odlesby, Maria Murphy, Rachel Ward, Niamh Byrne, Cathy Kafilat, Rebecca Gorman, Ciara O’Donoghue, Ciara Brady

For further information on this event contact Eamonn Henry, Coordinator Offaly Sports Partnership on 057 93 46843, mobile 086 7948054, email ehenry@offalycoco.ie

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Notes:
Offaly Sports Partnership is an inter agency sub group of Offaly County Development Board whose core funding is received from the Irish Sports Council.

The Pauline Curley Marathon Relay is a project of the Sports Partnership which was supported by the Women in Sport Programme of the Irish Sports Council and the Health Promotion Unit of the Health Services Executive. Development Officers of the Athletics Association of Ireland, board members of the Sports Partnership and staff from the Community and Enterprise Section, Offaly County Council acted as independent officials for the event.