Cork City Sports - Athlete of the Month Award January 2016 -
Claire Gibbons-McCarthy
The Cork City Sports
Athlete of the Month Award is sponsored by 96FM/C103FM, The Evening Echo
and The River Lee Hotel
Claire Gibbons-McCarthy, Leevale AC
- Cork City Sports Athlete of the Month - January 2016
Claire Gibbons-McCarthy, Leevale AC, receiving her award from Donal Murnane, Cork City Sports
Award Citation
'Claire
Gibbons-McCarthy (Leevale AC) is the Cork City Sports Cork
Athlete for the month of January. Claire won the Waterford Half
Marathon
in a personal best time of 1:16:45 on the 9th January She
subsequently went on to improve on this when winning the Over 35
section
of the Barcelona International Half Marathon in February in a very
impressive time of 1:15:18.'
A former joint winner of the award (with Lizzie Lee) in 2013, Claire
has since given birth to her fourth boy, Alex, and he – along with
Hayden, Jordan and Adam – accompanied her at the function, along with
husband Martin, a former winner of the National Inter-Clubs
cross-country.
Also in attendance were Claire’s mother, Hilda,
and Martin’s parents, Jerry and Peggy McCarthy. International athletes
Mark Hanrahan and Laura Crowe also attended, and Leevale were represented
by Claire’s coach, Donie Walsh, along with Finbarr O’Brien, Donal Murnane, Ina
Killeen, Caroline Philpott and John Calnan.
Cork City Sports officials included Tony O’Connell, Frank Walley, Terry O’Rourke and Liam O’Brien.
Claire Gibbons-McCarthy now aims for the London Marathon on April 24th
where she hopes to run inside 2:37:29, the slowest time of the three
Irish athletes – Lizzie Lee, Fionnuala McCormack and Breege Connolly -
who have already achieved the qualifying standard. Her marathon best of
2:39:27 was achieved in Dublin in 2013 when she finished second to Maria
McCambridge.
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