Gillick loses race to run in Helsinki

David Gillick has lost his race against time and withdrawn from the World Athletics Championships, which begin this Saturday in Helsinki.

The European Indoor 400-metre champion put himself through one last fitness test at the weekend, but quickly realised the lower-back injury that has sidelined him for most of the past month had set him back even further than he'd reckoned.

His withdrawal reduces the Irish interest in Helsinki to 11 athletes, and only four on the men's side. Yet Gillick was obviously more disappointed than anyone to miss out on what should have been his first individual representation at the World Championships.

After completing a training session at the Ringsend, Dublin, track on Saturday, he suddenly felt that running in Helsinki was finally beyond him.

"I was a little bit taken aback by my level of fitness," he explained, "and how tired I was. It was my first hard session in several weeks. And I reckon I'm only at 80 per cent of where I should be at this time of the year, and you just can't go to a World Championships in that kind of shape. There's no way I would have done myself any justice if I did. I would have been competing with too much of a handicap.

"It's still very disappointing, because Helsinki is the one place I wanted to race this year. I really wanted to be there. I wanted to do everything I could to get there, and that's why I was so keen to be selected. But maybe I was being a little too optimistic."

Although Gillick does feel the worst of his injury is now behind him, it still hasn't cleared up quickly enough to allow him perform on the world stage:

"Even If I'd had another week or 10 days I might have made it. Hopefully I can still make up enough ground to run in the World Student Games in Turkey later this month, and at least salvage something out of the season."

Gillick hasn't raced since he withdrew from the final of the European Under-23 championships in Germany back on July 16th, having at least got through his heat and semi-final.

His coaches, Jim Kidd and Lucy Moore, left the final decision up to Gillick, and, having just turned 22, he realised there would be plenty more opportunities to put his talents on display in major championships.

There was better news yesterday's concerning Mark Carroll, who announced his participation in the New York marathon on November 6th.

Although he had the qualifying standard for Helsinki over 5,000 metres, Carroll's priority at the age of 33 was to try to run one more good marathon, and he believes New York is the place.

"I was hoping to get the 10,000-metre time for Helsinki," he explained, "and when that didn't happen I didn't want to do something that would compromise my marathon training. I do plan to run another 10,000 in Brussels at the end of the month, but moving back down to the 5,000 would have been too much to ask.

"But I've had my eye on one more good marathon for a while now, and I believe that time has finally come. I'm definitely running as strong as I ever was, but I just want to go to New York and be competitive. I've got 14 weeks to prepare, and I think if I can get to the starting line in good shape then I will be ready to get the result I want."

Carroll made his marathon debut in New York in 2002, when he ran 2:10:54 in sixth place. He's unlikely to challenge John Treacy's 17-year-old Irish record of 2:09:15, but he remains the only Irish male capable of mixing it with the world's elite marathon runners, and that was enough to secure his healthy appearance fee for New York.