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For most of us Latzio are a top Italian football club who play at the highest level in European soccer. But there's a small province of Latzio called Rieti and that's the destination for 17 year old Newry girl Aislinn Crossey and her coach Francis Kookie O Hagan as they head off to the European Junior Athletics Championships on Thursday week the 18th of July where Aislinn will run for Ireland in the 800m Junior Ladies event writes Brendan Monaghan.
The Likable Windmill Road girl received the good news via email on Monday from the National Selectors at the AAI in Dublin. To the Athletics fraternity across the north and south of Ireland the news will come as no surprise as the young Sacred Heart student has a running CV that really is worth a visit on google or any of the National Athletics websites.
Numerous NI schools titles and individual race credits are backed up with National medals in both the 400 and 800m disciplines with the most recent honour coming on Sunday last when Crossey landed the Irish National Junior 800m title in a time of 2:11.14 at Tullamore County Offaly, no mean feat indeed considering the Newry student at 17 years can continue to run at Junior level for at least another 2 seasons. Personal bests at 400m (56.07) rank Aislinn 13th in the UK and 1st in NI, at 600m (1:31.29) she is ranked 1st in the UK and NI and in the 800m (2:06.43) the Newry AC athlete is classed at 5th in the UK and no.1 in NI, Impressive stuff indeed.
Aislinn took up running almost 5 years ago and soon fell under the wily eye of top coach O Hagan who plied his trade in triathlon, fell running and cycling and together with nutrition guru Barry Monaghan and strength and conditioning expert Brendan Murphy combined with important imput from Rodney Hanna the 4 men have helped to produce a real prospect from the Newry area.
It all could have been so different had Aislinn embarked on her original plan to follow a path into top class irish dancing where she competed in many feis competitions for the Burren based Murtagh School Of Dancing. But after a number of years jigs, reels and solo’s Crossey became somewhat disillusioned with the dancing scene and decided to throw her hat into the athletics ring.
Coach O Hagan reckons 5” 3’ Crossey is the real deal and states that his protégé "always runs with a smile on her face" and he feels that her attitude and commitment to diet, nutrition,training and competition is of the highest order, a rare attribute in someone so young. The Rostrevor based coached tells stories of the wet winter nights he has sat in the steeplechase pit of the St Colmans complex watching Aislinn going through her training routine on the deserted track cutting a lonely figure set against dark black skies and driving rain in her sacrifice to reach the top.
Sadly Aislinn’s progress is not helped by a total lack of funding and as she improves her times coach O Hagan has to find finances to take the Newry athlete across the water to England for better quality races and this situation will not change in the near future. Aislinn’s parents Art and Marian have backed their daughter from the start and if luck combined with a steely determination to succeed at the highest level and the continued imput from her coaching team could one day see the affable Newry girl reach the dizzy heights of top class athletics.
