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Ireland's Tracksters Show Top Form
Across the Globe
30 January 2005
The number of Irish athletes who
have attained the AAI's
Guideline Standards for the upcoming European Indoor
Championships in Madrid tripled over the weekend with a series of
top performances from Ireland's leading athletes competing in
Britain, Europe and the United States.
Boston
Alistair Cragg scored an upset victory
in the 3000m on Saturday over World Record Holder and Olympic
Champion Kenenisa Bekele at the Boston Indoor Games, with a
world-leading time of 7:39.89. The Clonliffe Harriers man took
advantage of Bekele's miscounting of the laps to record a win at the
Reggie Lewis Center with the second fastest time ever run by an
Irishman - only Cragg himself has run faster.
On the other side of town on Friday
night, Mark Carroll was in vintage form as he defeated U.S. 1500m
star Alan Webb over 3000m with a time of 7:46.60 at Boston
University. At the age of 33, this is Carroll's second fastest ever
indoor 3000m performance and shows he has lost little of the speed
which brought him European Indoor Gold in 2000.
Birmingham
The Irish 400m men demonstrated their class
at the Birmingham Indoor Games as David Gillick, David McCarthy and
Rob Daly were all within the qualifying standard of 47.60 for
Madrid. Gillick showed he is the in-form man at the moment with a
personal best of 47.14 in his semi-final to remain on top of the
Irish rankings for the season. McCarthy won his semi with 47.41
while Daly completed the Irish dominance with victory in the third
semi-final with 47.57. McCarthy took victory in the final with his
season's best 47.32; neither Gillick nor Daly completed the final.
Paul Hession also got in on the
qualification act with a 21.12 clocking in Birmingham, just a tenth
of a second outside his personal best set last winter. Gary Ryan was
unfortunate to find himself just on the wrong side of the qualifying
time with a clocking of 21.45 in his first furlong trip of the '05
indoor season. Ciara Sheehy also came close to qualifying with a
23.82 effort, just .02 outside the standard.
Budapest/Bratislava
Ailis McSweeney narrowly missed the
Irish 60m record of 7.38 held since 1993 by Michele Carroll when she
took victory in Bratislava on Sunday with a personal best of 7.39,
improving on the previous PB she had set of 7.41 in Budapest on
Friday. A major consolation was the fact that she achieved the
Madrid standard of 7.40 and has now made a strong claim for
selection for her first major championship. Emily Maher was also in
top form as she clocked 7.42 in Budapest and again in Bratislava to
move into third place on the alltime Irish 60m list behind Carroll
and McSweeney. Derval
O'Rourke got close to her National Record of 8.12 with twin
clockings of 8.15 in Budapest and Bratislava. She was the winner in
the Hungarian capital on Friday but Britain's Diane Allahgreen
reversed the result in Slovakia on Sunday.
Paul Brizzel was close to his best in
the 60m in Bratislava with a 6.78 clocking to move to the top of the
2005 Irish 60m rankings ahead of Jer O'Donoghue's early season 6.79;
both are still seeking the 6.75 standard for Madrid. And Taneisha
Scanlon set a new Irish women's triple jump record of 13.21m in
Budapest on Friday and remarkably equalled it in Bratislava again on
Sunday. Her previous record of 13.00m was set in 2002.
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