Disappointment for Nadia in Turin
By Daire Walsh
THERE was disappointment for Nadia Power at the European Cross Country Championships in Turin at the weekend as the Templeogue athlete and her Irish colleagues had to settle for a ninth place finish in the Mixed 4 x 1,500 Metres Relay final.
Competing in unison with Andrew Corscoran, Georgie Hartigan and Luke McCann, Power took to the track for the final leg of the race at La Mandria Park. In the end, this Irish quartet came home in a combined time of 17:56 – 33 seconds behind gold medal winners Italy.
Balbriggan native Andrew Coscoran had begun brightly for Team Ireland, registering a time of 3:56 that left them in sixth spot and very much in the reckoning for a podium finish. Next it was the turn of Georgie Hartigan from Dundrum South Dublin, who completed her leg of the relay in 4:54.
This saw them dropping back to 11th in the overall rankings, but a time of 4:09 from UCD AC’s Luke McCann leapfrogged Ireland into ninth ahead of Power’s entrance into the race. A member of Dublin City Harriers, Power signed off with an individual time of 4:59.
This helped Ireland to hold on to ninth in the final standings, but given they finished fourth in the same category of last year’s championships, it was generally accepted that this was an underwhelming showing from Ireland’s relay athletes in Italy.
Yet while it was a frustrating performance when you consider the high standards that Irish athletes place on themselves, it is also important to remember that Power found herself out of top-level action for quite some time.
It was just under 18 months since Power last represented her country on the athletics track – in the 800 metres category at the Olympic Games in Tokyo. A tear in her plantar tendon kept her sidelined for several months at the beginning of this year and while she returned to the track earlier this summer, it took time before she was able to find her feet again.
2023 is set to be a big year for Power as she looks to build towards the Paris Olympics in 2024 and she now finds herself based in London after operating out of Dublin up until recently. This move has seen her linking up with Matt Yates, a former European Indoor 1,500 metres champion who coaches a succession of athletes in the English capital.
Power has already achieved much in her athletics career (she broke the 800 metre Irish indoor record on a couple of occasions in 2021) and the 24-year-old continues to have a bright future in store.
Hartigan wasn’t the only member of the Rathfarnham-based Dundrum South Dublin to feature in the European Cross Country Championships as Hiko Tonosa also competed in the Senior Men Final in Turin. Originally from Ethiopia but now an Irish citizen, Tonosa finished 27th in a time of 30:48, which helped Team Ireland to claim a respectable eighth place finish overall.