Popular annual veteran event sees Irish athletes in fine form at the Billy Neill MBE Country Park on November 16
With a narrow win in the men’s and clear victory in the women’s contest, Ireland easily took the overall title from England, who have traditionally dominated the five-way international since the event began in 1988, only losing control post-Covid in the 2022 event.
Ireland won six of the eight women’s team events and four of the nine men’s events to England’s respective two and five.
Individually it was closer with Ireland winning nine golds to England’s eight with a single title for Wales and Scotland.
In recent years, England have gradually failed to attract all of their top masters with a combination of high costs, the counter attraction of easier and cheaper options of representing England masters on the road and a patchily attended trial race held in a league race on a busy weekend.
Next year’s British & Irish Masters International will be in Leeds with original hosts Wales declining to organise, so England should be stronger.
This year it was Northern Ireland’s turn to organise and they did a superb job at the Billy Neill MBE Country Park on the outskirts of Belfast. It was held with a good atmosphere helped by knowledgeable announcing on a spectator-friendly course.
The 2km circuit was a mostly uphill opening kilometre but featured a mostly very fast second half and was well received by most competitors.
M65 and over men and women
The first race off was for the oldest age-group competitors and held over three laps and honours were shared.
M65 winner Ifan Lloyd (Steve Smythe)
M65:Â
Ifan Lloyd, who set a British M65 marathon best of 2:49:14 in Bucharest in October, dominated to gain Wales’ only gold medal of the day.
Lloyd had been a close second in 2023 at Glasgow at the age of 64 so it was no surprise he was a class apart in his new age group.
It was one of the closest ever team competitions with just seven points covering the five teams  with England a shock last.
Ireland led by second-placer Tommy Payne, a former winner of the M50s in 2009 and the M55s in 2015, were winners from the host nation who had their best event of the day with their Lawrence Johnston also taking bronze.
1 I Lloyd WAL 23:07; 2 T Payne IRL 23:22; 3 L Johnston NI 23:23; 4 C Feechan SCO 23:35; 5 M Mawhinney NI 23:56; 6 P Morrison ENG 23:59
TEAM: IRL 21; 2 NI 25; 3 SCO 26; 4 WAL 26; 5 ENG 28
M70 David Butler (Steve Smythe)
M70
David Butler, who won the M55s three years…
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