{"id":238558,"date":"2026-01-10T22:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T22:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/238558\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T22:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T22:54:07","slug":"fay-16th-in-world-cross-country-irish-pair-make-top-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/238558\/","title":{"rendered":"Fay 16th in World Cross Country, Irish pair make top-25"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brian Fay produced a superb display to finish 16th in the men’s World Cross Country Championships in Florida, while a strong showing from Niamh Allen and Fiona Everard saw both Irish women finish inside the top-25 in the women\u2019s event.<\/p>\n

The course terrain at Apalachee Regional Park in Tallahassee featured 2km laps that included a 90ft rollercoaster ramp, sand, a water pit, a mud pit, plus alligator logs.<\/p>\n

The men’s event, similar to the women’s, was five laps with Fay making progress throughout to finish 16th out of a field of 106 in a time of 29:37.<\/p>\n

Fay, who won the Irish national cross country title in November before a month later being a scoring member of the Irish team that won a historic silver medal at the European Cross Country Championships<\/a>, the first by an Irish senior men’s team in 25 years, continued his fine form in Tallahassee.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old was placed 34th after two laps, 12 seconds off the lead, and while the pacesetters predictably went up the gears at the front, Fay was able to pick up a number of places.<\/p>\n

In lap three he moved up 10 positions and took the bell 20th overall. A strong final 2km saw him just edged out of 15th place by world 10,000m champion Jimmy Gressier.<\/p>\n

Fay was the fourth-highest European.<\/p>\n

“I’m buzzing,” he said afterwards. “After a poor World Outdoor Champs, I wanted to come here and make a statement. I wanted to put it up to those guys and put them under the cosh. I\u2019m happy I represented, and that I ran well.”<\/p>\n

“I was feeling good pretty much the whole way. It was tough, but I\u2019m rubbing shoulders with some very good guys \u2013 fourth European and they\u2019re all sub-27-minute (10,000m) guys. So it bodes well for the future.”<\/p>\n

As expected, it was a race dominated by African runners, with Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo (28:18) taking victory ahead of Ethiopia\u2019s Berihu Aregawi (28:36) and Kenya\u2019s Daniel Simiu Ebenyo third in a time of 28:45.<\/p>\n

In the women’s race, Allen (21st) and Everard (22nd) performed well to finish inside the top-25.<\/p>\n

\"Niamh
\nNiamh Allen, left, and Fiona Everard after finishing 21st and 23rd respectively in the women’s World Cross Country Championships in Flordia. Picture credit: Athletics Ireland<\/p>\n

After the opening lap, World Cross Country debutant Allen found herself 33rd, five places better off than compatriot Everard, who came into the event on the back of a 10th-place finish at the recent European Cross Country.<\/p>\n

The Irish pair looked comfortable and pushed on with Allen the third-best European to finish 21st in a time 34:19, with Everard just three seconds and two places behind her.<\/p>\n

The race was won by Kenya’s Agnes Ngetich (31:28), who had 42 seconds to spare over Uganda\u2019s Joy Cheptoyek, with Ethipioa\u2019s Senayet Getachew (32:13) edged out for third.<\/p>\n

Ethiopia took team gold, with silver for Kenya and Uganda taking bronze.<\/p>\n

In the men’s U20 race, Noah Harris placed 38th overall in a race dominated by Kenya.<\/p>\n

The 18-year-old from Wicklow, who is currently studying at the University of Tennessee, started out strong and kept pace with the leaders from the outset.<\/p>\n

\"Noah
\nHarris in action during his World Cross Country debut<\/p>\n

With a lap to go he was still nestled inside the top-20, but struggled when the pack kicked for home.<\/p>\n

In a field of 69 runners that completed the 8km route, Harris finished in a time of 26:03, with Keynan Frankline Kibet edging out compatriot Emmanuel Kiprono with a winning time of 23:18.<\/p>\n

Indeed it was a race dominated by the East Africans, with Kenya scooping the team title with the perfect score of 10 courtesy of filling the top four positions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brian Fay produced a superb display to finish 16th in the men’s World Cross Country Championships in Florida,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-238558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}