Sarah Bradley to take up scholarship in United States

Finn Valley AC athlete Sarah Bradley is set to begin a scholarship voyage in the United States.

Bradley will take up a posting at Queen’s University of Charlotte in North Carolina.

Bradley has represented Finn Valley at the European Club Cross Country Championships (ECCC) in the last two years.

In 2022, Bradley and Finn Valley AC finished sixth in Portugal, joined by Nuala Bose, Eimear McCarroll and Emer O’Brien in Oeiras. Bradley was the lead runner in 12th, coming home in 15:37.

Gemma McGuinness signs for AFC Bournemouth

Greencastle woman Gemma McGuinness has signed for National League side AFC Bournemouth from Galway United

Earlier this year, Bradley and the Finn Valley quartet of McCarroll, Amy Greene and Bose were eighth in Oropesa del Mar in Spain.

In December 2021, Bradley, Bose and Cara Laverty helped Finn Valley to win the Irish Under-19 women’s cross country title at Gowran Park in Kilkenny.

She is from a family steeped in sport with her uncle Paddy Brennan twice a Donegal Cross Country winner and a National Masters 1500m gold medallist.

In 2017, while at Gael Scoil Leitir Ceanainn, Bradley was one of the John Carlin Award winners at Finn Valley AC, awarded for excellence in schools athletics.

Bradley was the Ulster Under-19 800m gold medallist in 2022, clocking 2:32.67, and has also represented Loreto Secondary School with distinction in recent years.

She will become the latest Finn Valley AC athlete to go down the US scholarship route, a journey that began in 1985 when Camilla Harron, then a student at the Letterkenny Regional Technical College, took up a scholarship opportunity at Arizona University.

Sarah Collins, Dempsey McGuigan, Arlene Crossan, Shannon McLaughlin, Cassie Lagan and Oisin Ó Gailín are among a large contingent to have previously gone Stateside