National titles up for grabs at Belfast City Marathon

The 2021 National Senior Marathon Championships will take place this Sunday (October 3rd) in conjunction with the 39th Deep RiverRock Belfast City Marathon.

The classic distance always springs some surprises and some newcomers to the distance running fraternity. All eyes will be on the likely favourites and their challengers however as they take on the 26.2 mile test.

Olympian and reining national champion Stephen Scullion is among the entries, and the Clonliffe Harriers athlete will likely be the one to beat once again if taking his place on the start-line (also entered in Boston Marathon next week).

Raheny Shamrock’s Mick Clohisey is sure to be among the championship challengers as he bids to take gold having finished second in 2019 (2018 champion).

2019 champion Aoife Cooke is not in this year’s line-up following on from her Tokyo exertions, but a host of athletes come here in flying form having recently competed at the Antrim Coast Half Marathon.

Fionnuala Ross of Armagh A.C. looks one of the leading favourites for gold on the back of her half marathon performance but she will likely face some stiff competition from Gladys Ganiel (North Belfast Harriers) and Ciara Hickey (Brothers Pearse A.C.) who also performed well at the Antrim coast event.

Race start time is set for 9am with race results available on the Belfast City Marathon website.

• Race results will be available HERE (National Championships results will be published will be published post event)
• Course Map: Click HERE
• The national marathon entries can be found HERE

Athletics Ireland would like to thank Athletics Northern Ireland and the Belfast Marathon team for their assistance in hosting these championships.