O'Rourke leads top Irish lineup at the Odyssey
Former World Indoors Hurdles champion Derval O’Rourke will be using this
weekend’s Woodie’s DIY Irish Indoors Athletics Championships at the Odyssey as
a springboard for recapturing the World title she won so convincingly in Moscow
four years ago.
Woodie's DIY are sponsoring the Irish Indoor Track and Field Championships of Ireland. The meet will provide an action packed weekend of competition, in the Odyssey Arena on the 6th and 7th of February with athletes from across Ireland battling it out. The championships are jointly promoted by Athletics NI and
Athletics Ireland.
The 28 year old Leevale athlete’s first outing of the season should give some indication as to how close she is to repeating the electric form she showed in Moscow where she set a new Irish record of 7.84 seconds. She is certainly
capable of challenging for another World title in Doha in March given her
outstanding 4th place in last summer’s World Championships in August. On a
recent visit to Belfast a few weeks ago Derval said that her training was going
well and she was looking forward to the Indoor season. Certainly she should have little difficulty in capturing another Irish title against domestic opposition.
In the Men’s 60m Olympian Paul Hession will relish a return to the same venue
where he recorded his second fastest ever time of 6.63 seconds when winning in 2007. The Athenry athlete produced some outstanding performances on the Grand Prix circuit late last summer and he will be aiming for similar form in this year’s European Championships in Barcelona.
The Women’s 60m will again be one of the highlight events with 2 athletes in contention for the victory rostrum. Claire Brady (Celbridge AC) and Niamh Whelan (Ferrybank) have both recorded times within 0.2 seconds of each other in the
past 3 weeks with Brady running a PB of 7.48 seconds in London last week. Irish record holder Anna Bole of Ballymena and Antrim should also be in the mix along
with Ailis McSweeney of Leevale.
Irish Junior Athlete of the year Ciara Mageean set new figures over 1500m last
year when she just edged out Newbridge’s Roseanne Galligan. This time the World Youth 800m silver medallist will move down to the shorter distance for the Odyssey. The Portaferry schoolgirl’s PB of 2.03.07 means that the 19 year old Irish record of 2.08.74 is under serious threat.
There will be considerable interest in the return of British 800m international
James McIlroy after a 2 year period when he quit the sport. The 33 year old
former Olympic athlete clearly feels he has something more to prove from a career which at one stage seemed to promise so much. His talent is such that he should have little difficulty reaching the qualifying standard for October’s Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
Other athletes of note include Kelly Proper of Ferryback who broke the Irish long jump record 2 weeks ago, Deidre Byrne who destroyed the field last year in the 3000m, Brian Gregan who set a 400m PB of 47.67 seconds last week and walkers Robert Heffernan, Colin Griffin and Jamie Costin.
World Silver Medalist, Olive Loughnane of Loughrea AC who was due to compete
in the 3km Walk will not now be competing due to a slight injury. Walkers, Robert Heffernan (Togher AC), Colin Griffin (Ballinamore AC) and Jamie Costin (West Waterford AC) will compete in the Men’s 5km Walk.
RTÉ 2 will be showing highlights of the Championships on an OB Sports special on Monday 8th of February at 19:00 – 20:00.
Visit www.indoorathletics.net for more information. |
