Christie lights up bad day

Athletics European Cross Country championshipsThe only lasting sight of a green vest at the front of the men's races in Edinburgh yesterday was provided by Mark Christie, the 18-year-old student from Mullingar. He came away as the sixth best junior cross country runner in Europe, and suddenly a whole bright new future opened up before him.

Christie's marvellous run somewhat made up for the disappointing show in the senior men's race, where Séamus Power did his best to take 19th position, but the team still ended up 10th and last among the finishers. Yet deprived of their three top athletes it wasn't exactly a million miles short of expectations.

For Christie, however, sixth place in Europe - in what was clearly the most competitive junior race in the 10 editions of these championships - the trip to Edinburgh will surely remembered as a turning point in his career. Though a highly promising youngster, his progression appeared to have stalled in recent years. And now this.

"That's definitely my best run in a long time," said Christie, now a student at DCU but still coached by David Burke. "In fact it's even better than I thought I'd do here. It was tough, and I had to fight for every place, but it does make up for some of my disappointing runs in recent years."

Ahead of Christie were five equally impressive athletes, led home by the Russian twins Yevgeniy and Anatoliy Rybakov - who also took the top-two places last year. Joe Sweeney of Dundrum was next home in 25th, and the team ended up seventh.

With Keith Kelly, Alistair Cragg and Cathal Lombard all missing from the senior race - and potential top-10 finishers if they were there - the Irish senior men were up against it from the start. In the end they combined to score 181 points, a long ways behind the winners France (47).

After Power came Peter Mathews in 49th place, then Vinnie Mulvey (52nd) and Mark Kenneally (81st) and together they were well short of the sort of performance that just three years ago saw the Irish claim bronze medals in Sweden.

For Power, who did move from 32nd up to 19th on the last lap, the result reflected the obvious lack of first choice runners.

The truly testing hill, known locally as the Haggis Knowe, was where most of the killing surges were delivered at the front of the race. "It was tough," added Power "But there had to be something to separate us, and I suppose that was it today." For eventual winner Sergiy Lebid of Ukraine, the daunting hill was tackled like a small stairway.

Half way around the 10.1 kilometre course he was already looking like the only possible winner, and at the finish had 21 seconds to spare on Juan De La Ossa of Spain.

It gave Lebid a record-equalling fourth title, as he'd won the previous two editions of the race and also in 1998, and now shares four titles with Paulo Guerra of Portugal.