Ultrarunning Ireland Athletes of the Year 2010

John O'Regan, Eddie Gallen & Martin McCann at the Spartathlon Awards Ceremony.

Eddie Gallen is UltraRunning Ireland's 2010 Male Athlete of the Year, Aisling Coppinger is Female Athlete of the Year while Michael Collins earns Performance of the Year.

Eddie Gallen ran in a record fourth consecutive World 24 Hour Championships in Brive, France in May and was the top Irish finisher with a PB of 223.898km, or 139.123 miles. In September he also became the first Irish finisher of the Spartathlon since 1998. The Spartathlon, run from Athens to Sparta, must be completed within 36 hours and strict cut-off times for reaching intermediate checkpoints are imposed. Furthermore, high temperatures in Greece make a difficult course all the more trying.

John Byrne, Michael Collins, Aisling Coppinger, John O'Regan at the 100K World Championships Gibraltar.

Aisling Coppinger finished fourth in the Anglo Celtic Plate 100km in June and then claimed a top 30 European and top 40 World placing at the World & European Championships in Gibraltar in November, setting a PB of 9:09:19 at the event. In between, she won the Causeway Coast Ultra and the Motivate Challenge Duathlon.

Michael Collins earns Performance of the Year for leading the Irish team home at the World 100km Championships in November. In doing so, he also claimed a World bronze medal in the M45 category with a time of 7:52:08.