ATHLETICS:Ireland's under-23 team ran their hearts out in the Algarve and were rewarded with gold, writes IAN O'RIORDAN

WELCOME TO the new generation. There was gold in them boys – that was always the prospect – but to unearth it so brilliantly down in the Algarve yesterday, and win Ireland’s first gold medal at the European Cross Country since the inaugural event 16 years ago, is something the sport and perhaps the whole country needed right now.

In the end they did it with a bit of style too: the men’s under-23 team of David McCarthy, Brendan O’Neill, Michael Mulhare, David Rooney, John Coghlan and Ciarán Ó Lionáird all knew they needed to run to maximum potential to secure a medal of any colour, and most of them did exactly that. So the European title was theirs, with 18 points to spare over France, leaving Spain third, and Great Britain fourth.

All four team scorers – McCarthy, O’Neill, Mulhare and Rooney – finished in the top 20, and for a long time McCarthy was also challenging for an individual medal. He lost some ground towards the end of the 8km race, and finished up 11th, but with O’Neill in 13th, Mulhare in 16th and Rooney in 20th, their team total of 60 points ensured they were well safe for the title, even before the calculators were taken out.

“We knew coming out here that it was definitely the best under-23 team that we’d ever fielded in these championships,” said Irish team manager Ann Keenan-Buckley. “But we knew as well it would be very tough. There were 16 teams out there, up from 11 last year, so definitely the field was stacked. But to win the gold medal, Ireland’s first ever team gold medal in these championships, is fantastic. It’s a serious competition, and these young fellas all worked so hard. To hear Amhrán na bhFiann being played out here, after so long, was great.”

Indeed it has been a long time coming: Catherina McKiernan won the senior women’s race in the inaugural championships in Durham in 1994, but since then Ireland have only won two further individual medals (Fionnuala Britton’s under-23 silver in 2006, and Gareth Turnbull’s junior bronze in 1998) and four team medals (the junior men’s bronze in 1999, senior men’s bronze in 2000, senior women’s silver in 2003, and junior men’s silver in 2004).

There was very nearly another medal for Britton later on when she finished fourth in the senior women’s race – her brave and superbly determined run leaving her just a stride short of the bronze medal. In fact Britton was given the same time as third-placed Dulce Felix from Portugal, and if that wasn’t sickening enough, second place went to Binnaz Uslu of Turkey, who has just returned from a two-year drugs ban, and controversially beat Britton to that under-23 title in 2006.

Britton’s day, if there is any justice in the sport, will come, but for the men’s under-23s the future now looks even brighter. From the gun all six runners put themselves in contention, their intentions and determination absolute. McCarthy had prepared specifically for this race since returning to his US base in Providence, Rhode Island last September, and after a difficult two years, the Waterford athlete re-revealed his considerable talent. He was mixing it in the top five for a long time, and although he admitted afterwards that he was suffering from a stomach complaint since flying in from America last Sunday, that during the race it felt “like a knife cutting right across my middle” he battled on relentlessly.

“I came here with high expectation of an individual run,” said McCarthy, “hoping even for a win. But I knew the team was so strong today that no matter how hard I was suffering, these guys would bring me home. And even though I was dying at the end, I looked back and saw every one of my team-mates there, and I just put the head down.”

Mulhare, who hails from a family of distance runners in Laois, also paid tribute to the team spirit: “We were all supporting each other out there. We actually said in the middle of the race not to get carried away. So we all worked together fierce well.” And O’Neill reckoned the best of their talents is yet to come. “There were two big hills at the end of each lap, and we knew that was where we needed to hold the line. It’s great to win this medal, but we’re firmly focused on the senior ranks already. That’s where we really want to make the impact.”

Indeed it was the team effort that counted: Coghlan (son of Eamonn) finished up in 34th, with Ó Lionáird fading to 76th – and Ó Lionáird was in fact too exhausted to make it onto the medal podium afterwards. O’Neill, who has come through the underage ranks at Dundrum South Dublin, lifted the winning trophy and with that every one of the Irish contingent who had made the trip to Albufeira in Portugal made their voices heard.

With 102 runners the men’s under-23 race was arguably the most competitive of the day, with France securing a one-two in Hassan Chahdi and Florian Carvalho. So to win the team title outright goes a long way towards making up for the disappointment of coming away empty handed on home soil in Santry a year ago.

It was said the fast and furious racing surface of Albufeira mightn’t suit the Irish, but that didn’t prove true. Britton put herself in the top three of the senior women’s race early on, visibly intent on making it into the medals, and although she moved back into third as late as the last lap, had to be content with fourth – which she actually wasn’t content with at all. Portugal took first and third in Jessica Augusto and Felix, with Uslu claiming silver.

“I came out here to get a medal,” said Britton, “and I really believed I would. I’m so disappointed now, because fourth really is the worst position. I knew the Portuguese would come through, and I had to do everything I had before that. When the Turkish girl went by, well, I didn’t expect it to be her. At the end though I was more disgusted I didn’t catch the other Portuguese girl. She was dying, and I was getting her.”