Gold for Meath athlete in South Korea

The Irish M55 team of Michael Cornyn (Dunboyne), Pat O'Grady Drogheda AC and Ratoath resident and former Meath LSP chairman Tom O'Connor (Liffey Valley) won a team gold and were crowned World Masters champions at the World Masters Championships in Daegu, South Korea today.

On a flat but tough 8km course the Irish team packed superbly to claim gold ahead of Italy and South Korea in Suseong Park.

The battle for gold was between the Irish and the Italians from early on and as the race progressed the two leading Italian runners were forcing the pace ahead of o'Grady and O'Connor.

However, O'Grady was struggling with a hanstring injury coming into the race and this started to affect him from the half way point.

At that stage it looked as if a team gold would be decided by the third runners on both teams as the three combined times make up the final score.

With Cornyn running strongly and with the third Italian runner almost a half a lap behind entering the final 2kms Ireland looked set for gold.

With two South Korean runners ahead of the Dunboyne athlete there was always the danger over the last lap that they could spring a suprise, but with 200m remaining to the finish Cornyn sprinted past one of the South Koreans to ensure silver and it turned out with the third Italian runner almost 10 minutes behind it also ensured World team gold.