 So, delighted to be joined by Athletics Ireland President John Cronin to look ahead to what is a big weekend for Donegal Athletics. John, it's good to see you. Good to talk to you and welcome along to the airwaves of Highland Radio once again. Thanks, Ashene. Delighted to be on your show. Obviously, we're looking forward to a massive event this weekend, John, for just the second time ever in the national cross-country championships are coming to Donegal. It was in Fun Valley in 1999. We've had a bit of a wait. It's heading to Rossipena on Sunday and this is a big thing for Donegal Athletics and for people involved in Donegal Athletics to have an event of the stature and size here. It certainly is and I'm delighted that the championships are coming to Donegal. Donegal has played a huge part in Irish athletics over the years and a lot of the athletes have started off on Friday evenings and Saturday mornings and Sunday evenings heading to arts and parts all around the country. It's great to have the championships on home ground and a return again. Fun Valley hosted the championships very successfully. Senior championships back in 1999. It's well done to Cranford and all those involved in applying for and getting the championships and I know them and working very hard since. Yeah, it's been a huge effort by the club down there. I suppose one man in particular, we've mentioned them a lot in the build-up to this event that we're going to mention them now as well. Eamon Jails. Eamon, yeah. Eamon is the powerhouse behind Cranford AC. As we all know, he was one of the founder members of Jim Hunter in 1961 and he's still going. Athletics Ireland had the wisdom many years ago to appoint him an honorary Vice President and he didn't sit down on his hands after that. He's kept going and continues to turn out so many athletes over the years, ranging from Danny McDade, who has been an absolute superstar in the 70s. One of the two Olympics finished in the 11th in the world of cross country. Right through to the modern day athletes where Keela McFadden and Ash and Kelly have been on the podium many times and hopefully they'll do well on Sunday. And in the meantime, people have come through the club like Amber Barrett is a great example, has a great success with Juvenile career and she's gone on to other aspects of the sport and there's also so many other people who have moved on from the club after their careers. Patty Marley, who's an international, moved into Clandiff. Patsy McGonigal had moved into Finn Valley and you see the success story there and so many danger leaving out names. So it's endless. You'd fill your whole show. Yeah. And I suppose it's fitting too that this event has been host to big crampford and it's a great tribute to have an event to this size to honour somebody like Eamon Giles who's put in so much work. But you left the county a while ago so you did, John, you went away to university and you never returned in a full time capacity. But what's the reaction being like with athletes and those involved in athletics further down the country? You're based in Tullamore ahead of this event. What's their thinking now as they have to make the trip north to Doney Giles? Is it something they're looking forward to? Is it the challenge something that they're looking forward to? Yeah, there's been a lot of chatter, a lot of talk about it. It's all quite positive. You'll get the odd person bemoaning the distance and everything else and I just tell them that it's kind of a principle of mathematics that the distance between there to Doney Giles exactly the same as Doney Giles back. So normally they accept that and it's great to be honouring crampford 60 for 60 first anniversary and then all the clubs who came after them who I said earlier in the show that they've been continually heading down the country. So I think it's been a very positive reaction. A lot of people are looking forward to it and it's going to be a very scenic course for the championships to be held on. Yeah, it certainly is and I suppose as a Doney Giles native it'll be a proud weekend for you too, John, having them down in your home patch? Absolutely. As a young athlete I had the pleasure of training on the Rosapena golf course at the time. It certainly was a privilege and I would say the surface was as good as any track in the country and we did a lot of speed work there on the 9th fairway so that helped us and crampford continues to use those facilities which are kindly donated by the Casey family who made a big contribution to this event. It'll be a proud day for you having the event in Doney Giles but I'm sure there was a lot of proud moments over the last year or so for you, John, and maybe one in particular when a Doney Giles man picked up a bronze medal at a European Championship in the form of Mark English. You were out there at the competition? Absolutely. I was wearing two hats. I was technical delegate for European athletics so I was responsible for the whole competition and I was delighted to see both Kira and Mark win their medals. The stadium in Munich is 50 years old, 50th anniversary this year and there's absolutely no mod cons like lifts or escalators in it so it was something over 160 steps up to where I was positioned but I was very proud to announce to my colleagues that I was taken a few minutes off to go down to the mix zone to congratulate Mark and when I got down there I was very delighted and proud to congratulate Mark as I was with Kira and I think Saren had their best ever European Championships with two podium places and 11 top eight and that was that was a fantastic and it was the whole spectrum of ages. We had some very young athletes like Rashidad and Israel coming into the sport and the more experienced like Mark and Kira doing fantastic work and of course there was a Doney Giles connection there as well. Theresa McDade was team manager so I was delighted to meet her in the mix zone as well so we were all quite happy. Was the European Championships then a timely boost for Irish athletics and the performances of those that was out there? Was it something that the sport coordinated on the country John? Absolutely it's been building there's been a lot of young talent coming through and this and after COVID like all sports we suffered over the over the few years so it was really fantastic to see it all come into fruition. We had a busy year with Oregon and we had under 20s in Columbia and we had of course the juniors in Jerusalem with Fintan winning fantastic medal and we even had underage developmental squads going over to Bedford and doing doing very well but Munich really was a showcase for us and at the time we had a significant with the GA program the way it was we managed to capture the airwaves and thanks to Highland Radio as well for the tremendous support they gave us throughout the Championships. It's all about building on it now isn't it John? It's one thing doing it you just can't you can't stand still you have to keep moving and targeting upwards? No absolutely our high performance team are continually working to build on it and that's the whole idea is to build on it. Paris is not so far away and we're also looking out the European Championships in 2024 and we're delighted here the news during the week that the 2026 European Championships which is the European Championships in the non-olympic year like this year will be hosted in Birmingham which would be as good as a home gig for us you know so it's a lot to look forward to. Even in a shorter term based on some of these results we'll be picking the team or the team will be picked to go to Turin and build on the Euro Cross. Yeah that's what I was going to touch on that there's a lot at stake for of course these these Irish athletes so the cream of the crop is going to be going to be in Rossipena come Sunday and fingers crossed that they get the weather for because the course is going to be in fantastic condition that sort of link surface always is and it can handle weather but I think the weather's given for good John so it's going to make for some for some fast running and some for spectators some impressive action too. Yes absolutely I've been I've been looking at the weather and hopefully the weather will be kind to us we're looking for a dry day not too much wind and the course course will take care of itself and it's going to be it's going to be going to be a brilliant course and it'll be testing testing for everybody and we have the cream of the crop the cream of the crop running there and it will be merging in with the American Collegiate Championships around Saturday and the with some good results there the the team will be picked to head to Turin and try and build on the huge success we had we had in Dublin last year. Yeah us we look forward to an exciting weekend of athletics. John Cronin president of Athletics Ireland many thanks for joining us today. Thanks very much Ashina and thank you for your continued support of our wonderful sport.