Rarely has any Irish running medal haul been wrapped up more magnificently than this. The look of uncontained delight on the face of Nick Griggs said it all.
By his own admission, Griggs had been the nearly-man of the European Cross-Country Championships. Not any more. Griggs was imperious in winning the under-23 race around the twisting, fast course in the Algarve on Sunday, his gold medal run also leading Ireland to the team title in the same race.
Then came the delightful silver lining for the senior men’s team, Jack O’Leary storming around the Parchal Urban Park course to nail fifth place, with Brian Fay 10th and Cormac Dalton 11th. Together they took Ireland up to second – and a podium place in that race for the first time in 25 years.
There was also an excellent bronze medal for Emma Hickey in the women’s under-20 race, a first by any Irish woman, the 16-year-old from Wexford among the youngest runners on the day.
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Those four medals across the seven races in Lagoa placed Ireland fourth on the overall medal table, our best performance in the 31 editions of the championships.
“It’s unreal, I haven’t cried in a long time, I can’t really describe it,” said Griggs, who already had three runners-up medals to his name, last year’s among them. “I’ve wanted this for so long, and to come and put it together on the day, it’s so special.
“I’ve been dreaming of it for a long time. I said last time I was the nearly-man at these champs, but finally after four and a half years I’m the top of the podium again.”
Indeed Griggs first tasted European underage success on the track back in 2021 and, five days before his 21st birthday, the Tyrone athlete dominated the 5.9km race staged in bright sunshine on the Algarve coast. He raced clear on the last of the four laps, finishing in 17:47, 12 seconds ahead of Aurélien Radja of France.
Calum Morgan, who trains in Belfast with Griggs under coach Mark Kirk, ran a superb race to finish eighth. Niall Murphy took 10th place, giving Ireland the team gold with 19 points. Only three runners are required to score, with Jonas Stafford (29th) and Lughaidh Mallon (48th) also enjoying the moment on the podium.
“I just so proud of myself, and so proud of the lads beside me,” Griggs added. “Two of them I train with two or three times a week [Calum and Lughaidh]. It’s just an unbelievable group of lads, I just can’t describe how proud I am of putting a historic double gold on the medal table for Ireland.”
There was no containing the delight of the Irish senior men either after they won team silver with 26 points, Spain and France taking gold and bronze respectively.
It was O’Leary’s first international vest since 2021, the Mullingar athlete and nephew of Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary producing the best run of his life. All five of the Irish team made the top-20, with Darragh McElhinney 16th and Efrem Gidey 19th.
“Watching the under-23s and the other Irish teams gave us huge confidence,” said O’Leary. “Seeing Griggs do his thing out front was really inspirational, and everyone on the start line was raring to go.”
Fiona Everard also ran the race of her life to finish 10th in the senior women’s race as fellow Cork runner Niamh Allen finished 23rd.
The Irish mixed relay quartet were left wondering what might have been after Cian McPhillips effectively ran into Laura Nicholson when passing the wristband between the second and third leg.
Eimear Maher ran an excellent first leg (1,300m) to pass over to McPhillips in second, the Irish 800m record holder doing well to hold on to fourth by the end of his leg (1,510m). Then it all went wrong between McPhillips and Nicholson, who briefly hit the ground. She recovered quickly, running in fourth for a while on her leg (1,500m), before dropping back to seventh on the last changeover to Andrew Coscoran.
The 29-year-old gained one place on the final leg (1,640m) to see Ireland finish sixth, 10 seconds behind gold medal winners Italy.
Griggs now has seven European cross-country medals, between team and individual, and is still young enough for under-23 next year. It’ll be hard to improve on this performance though.
