MICK TRAYNOR GOES FOR  GLORY AGAIN

ONE of the highlights of the club's competitive race programme, the Winter League begins on Wednesday night and continues until next Spring. The event is run over eight rounds over distances of one, two and three miles.

The attractiveness of the event lies in the fact that it caters for all categories of runner. There are four different divisions in the league so while the top dogs can battle it out for the Division 1 and 2 titles, the less experienced competitors can have an equally enthralling contest to decide the Division 3 and 4 titles. Race director Pat Hooper will allocate the runners to their various divisions after the first two rounds of the league which take place before Christmas.

Mick Traynor has dominated the top end of the League for a decade, winning nine out of ten titles. Once he stays injury free he is virtually unbeatable over this course. The only athlete other than Mick to win the Division 1 title in the last decade was his cousin Ian Conroy, who has been showing good form in the Fit4Life league. Others who are likely to figure in the battle for podium positions in Division 1 include Simon Reede, the Mooney brothers and Dave Gargan.

The return to Matt Milner to his home in Perth, Australia means that the contest for the Division 2 title is wide open though it could boil down to a battle between Martin Kelly and Johnny Fennell.

The actions gets under way on Wednesday night with a three mile race at 8pm. Registration in the clubhouse from 7.15pm. Refreshments will be served in the clubhouse after the race. The second round over two miles takes place on Wednesday week.

* In today's NCAA 10,00m Division 1 cross country championship in the US hosted by Indiana State University, Richie Yeates who is a student in Providence College finished 168th in 31.26.0. His split times for 3k, 5k and 8km were 9.00; 15.26 and 25.05 respectively. Ireland's Andrew Ledwith was third in  29.54.4.