Last July, a New Jersey, USA based athlete with strong Castleisland connections ran for An Ríocht AC in Templemore and he won the Munster U-20 3000m at the meeting.
Shane Brosnan is a son of the Cahernard born, New Jersey domiciled Seamus Brosnan and a grandson of Denis and Catherine.
Membership of An Ríocht AC is a long running thing in the Brosnan family and you can see why the ‘Flash’ tag is often used to differentiate this branch of the clan.
Reaching Lofty Goals
After returning to the USA from the trip to Ireland, Shane started training for the cross country season.
His high school coach set some lofty goals and Shane and his team signed up for them.
Within a few races Shane smashed a 23 year old record while winning the county championship. He and his teammates progressed to the state sectional finals where he won again leading the team to their first sectional win ever.
This qualified them for the New Jersey state finals. Shane came third and, again, lead his team to their first state win.
Beating All Expectations
From there they qualified for the USA National team cross county competition in Alabama where they beat all expectations in what was the fastest 5Km high school race ever run in USA history. Shane ran 14m-25s to get 13th place and lead the team to fourth in the nation.
This was deemed a great achievement for a small school.
Shane went on to qualify for the national individual cross country championship by placing fifth in the northeast region with over 300 runners.
This race was watched in person by his grandparents Denis and Catherine Brosnan who were visiting at the time.
Recalling An Ríocht 10k Races
Former world champion and current Villanova head coach Marcus O’Sullivan was present and congratulated Shane and his family after the race and said to say hello to Joe and Gerard Walsh whom he remembered from running in the An Ríocht 10k races back in the 1980s.
From there the up and coming star exceeded expectations yet again and finished seventh in the USA and a great finish to an exceptional season.
In Green Singlet in 2022
College-wise Shane received interest from many division 1 and Ivy League colleges for both his athletic and academic abilities.
He recently committed to Harvard where he will be joining the track team in August. In the meantime, he is preparing for the upcoming high school indoor season before returning to the outdoors.
There is a distinct possibility that we’ll see him back running for An Ríocht and Ireland in the course of the coming year.
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