Mick Traynor returned to the masters medal podium helping Ireland to World masters M60 8km road race silver.
Below report from Michael Comyn who was third scorer on the team.
A brilliant first day for Team Ireland at World Masters Athletics Indoor Championships 2025 CC & Road here in Alachua Count, Gainsville, Florida winning two gold and three silver medals on the very first day in the Cross Country.
Our M60 team of Mick Traynor, Raheny Shamrock AC, Barry Mackey, Letterkenny AC and myself packed superbly in our 8k race to win World Team silver medals yesterday with Mick ninth in 34:19, Barry 14th in 35:44 and myself 20th in 37:31.
A cool morning saw temperatures rise rapidly and before our 11.10 start it had risen to 26/27 degrees. We took whatever shade was available to just before the start time.
A combined race of 55 to 69 years took off bang on 11:10 for the first of 4 laps of 2k.
Mick Traynor led the charge and was running very strongly with Barry a little further back and myself 50m back. On the first lap I was running shoulder to shoulder with Stephen Doxey from GB who I reckoned was their second team scorer.
If that was right we had a chance of claiming team silver. We stayed together until the start of the last lap where Stephen opened a slight gap. It was becoming a struggle in the heat to maintain form and focus and a real grind over that final 2k.
I was running side by side with Amaya Rene of Columbia and entering the final 200m meters sprinted away to finish within 20 seconds of Doxey.
Slight dizzy at the finish some cold iced water did the trick and then the anxious wait for the team results. If Doxey had been GB third runner instead of second we would have bronze.
20 minutes later the results were announced and to great celebration we had won World Team Silver behind hosts USA and ahead of GB.
What made this so special was the comeback of Mick Traynor former World & European cross country Champion, out for almost 10 years with injury (Mick had won the World title exactly 10 years ago in Lyon and had lead the Irish team of Tom O’Connor and myself to team bronze that day and my first World medal).
Barry Mackay, winning his very first World masters medal and it completed my come back from my illness in 2023. A few runners in the next race needed emergency aid on finishing with the heat.
We headed back to the Indoor arena where the medal presentations were taking place and it was a very special moment at 2:30pm as we finally climbed onto the World podium.
Thanks to team managers Sean McDermott and Anne Gormely for their support out on the course and all the Irish support.
With a few track races to run and 10k next Saturday there is a lot of running still to do here.
Good luck to all the rest of the 41 strong Irish team over the next six days.
