Karen Shinkins' 51.99 win in Fortaleza, Brazil in the South American Grand Prix series last night is the latest in a number of good early season performances by Irish athletes. The time was Shinkins fastest since 2002, the same year she won bronze at the European Indoor Championships in Vienna. It also follows a strong 52.06 second place finish in last Sunday's IAAF GP in Rio de Janeiro. Taneisha Scanlon surpassed her own triple jump outdoor National Record with a 13.23m effort for 4th place in Jamaica on May 7th. Scanlon jumped 13.28m this past indoors which, for the moment, remains the furthest leap indoors or out by an Irish competitor. Marie Davenport won the 5000m event in Stanford on May 1st with a time of 15:32.74. She already has an A standard for Helsinki from 2004 in the 10,000m. Thomas Chamney, already qualified for this summer's European U23 Championships, ran an outdoor personal best of 1:48.92 in Michigan on the 7th of May. And former World Championship finalist Ciaran McDonagh's training stint with Olympic Champion Dwight Phillips is translating into promising early season form; he has already jumped 7.65m and 7.72m for victories in Georgia Tech and Clemson, the former into a -1.5 m/s headwind.
