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Reebok International Cross Challenge,
Cardiff 2005
Sunday 23rd January 2005 - Pictures
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Debut Senior International Cross-Country
Vest for Harty
Newcastle AC's Kerry Harty reached another running
landmark on Sunday past when she gained her first senior
international vest for Northern Ireland at the Reebok
International Cross-Country race in Bute Park in Cardiff.
After an eventful day travelling via Bristol Airport,
the team's hotel was the Holiday Inn beside the Millenium
Stadium where the Tsunami Relief Charity Concert was
in full flight - though with the roof closed, it was
not creating as much noise as it might have been. Sunday
dawned bright and crisp after the hard overnight frost
but with the buckets of rain that had fallen over the
past month, the course promised to be a quagmire, especially
as there were nine other races over the same ground
before the Ladies race.
Harty had picked up many junior international vests
but has only returned to the racing over the past year
or so after around five years of a lay-off from the
serious competitive end of the scene. Last summer she
represented Ireland at the European Mountain Racing
Championships in Poland and Northern Ireland at the
World Mountain Racing Championships in Italy.
Sunday's race was over three laps of a reasonably flat
loop behind Cardiff Castle, totalling 6km and posing
a tough test in the strength sapping underfoot conditions.
Harty had finished 4th Northern Ireland woman home in
the Stormont cross-country two weeks earlier and the
three women who beat her were also in Cardiff.
First Northern Ireland woman home in 17th place was
Jill Shannon 46 seconds clear of Suzanne McCormick who
was in 23rd place, reversing their relative placing
at Stormont. Harty ran, as ever, a determined race and
came home in 30th place in 25 minutes and 52 seconds,
just ahead of Catriona McCorkell who had narrowly beaten
her at Stormont.
Harty now looks forward to the Northern Ireland Intermediate
Women's Cross-Country Championship this weekend in Bangor
over 2.5miles where she will be backed by a Newcastle
team eager to secure the title.
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