UCC students rally to save Mardyke track

UCC students are hoping to save the running track at the Mardyke Arena after the closure of the facility last March on health and safety grounds.

The decision has left the athletics club homeless, meaning they have to travel around Cork and Munster so they can train.

UCC are aware of the issues facing the track; a referendum was recently passed on raising the student capitation fee by €50 for the upgrading of outdoor sport facilities, and the college’s athletics club hope some of the funds recuperated can go towards repairing their home.

SAVE THE TRACK

Emma Murray is the secretary of UCC Athletics and she said the club are doing everything they can to make sure the track is preserved for future generations.

“At the moment our Save The Track campaign is based on a survey that the Students Union released last week,” she explained.

“This survey was on the back of the referendum that was passed last year and was open to all UCC students as an opportunity for them to have their say on where the extra capitation money would go.

“That referendum was to improve the outdoor sports facilities in UCC because it was known to people for a long time that they were in need of an upgrade.

“A key area of campaigning last year with that referendum was the issues relating to the track as the surface of it was gone into disrepair.

“The track is a key offering of the current sports facilities and our campaign is to highlight the need for a track and the need for this resurfacing project to happen.”

This follows a difficult year for the club as they’ve had to train where they can for various intervarsity competitions.

UCC Athletics isn’t the only club that has to deal with this; the closure had an impact on the entire running community in Cork. It was dramatic, and no one felt this more than the students at the college and they survived by seeking out alternative venues.

Despite these problems, the club has grown from strength to strength with numbers increasing each week.

“We had between 40 and 50 people at training on a Tuesday and Thursday night last year,” she said. “The sudden closure was at the beginning of the track season when we had outdoor intervarsity’s coming up.

Athletes were really starting to build momentum for the season ahead and it was pulled out from under us with no alternative nearby.

“MTU was closed as well because it was being resurfaced and there were some delays with that. We were really left with nothing.

“Athletes were forced to commute to tracks all over the place in order to train.”