The 2021 Cork Senior Cross Country Championships were held near Macroom on Sunday the 3rd of October and yet again, the numbers were very poor.
The men's race was won by Tim O'Donoghue of East Cork AC with a small field of 44 runners. Just 4 clubs managed to field teams with Leevale AC finishing first.
The women's race was won by Lizzie Lee of Leevale AC with her club taking the team title as well. The numbers however were really poor with just 17 taking part.
The numbers in fact were so bad that there was no 3rd place team on the podium. Leevale AC and St. Finbarr's AC athletes accounted for 11 of the 17 in the race.
According to the Athletics Ireland website, there are supposed to be somewhere in the region of 54 athletic clubs in Cork.
As outlined in a previous post, the Cork athletics board spent well over €300,000 about a decade ago on a dedicated cross country course near Riverstick after getting a very slim majority at an AGM.
Fast forward to 2021 and the cross country site lies idle for 11 months of the year and they cant even get three teams from 54 clubs to turn up for senior cross country championships.
The results are up on the MyRunResults website.
1) Huge drop in Novice Cross Country numbers in Cork