Peter Coughlan was yesterday anticipating his first major international assignment after he was promoted to Ireland's squad for the World championships in Athens which begins on August 1st.
Coughlan, as expected, gets the vacancy left by TJ Kearns, who decided that his current level of fitness does not warrant his participation in the 110 metres hurdles event.
Unlike Kearns, who has an A qualifying standard from last year,
Coughlan gets in on B figures, but, at 21, the Crusaders athlete represents the future of Irish high hurdling.
BLE officials also confirmed yesterday that there will be no replacement for Noel Berkeley, the DSD runner who had been named as the sole Irish representative in the men's marathon.
Berkeley, a professional athlete who won the 10,000 metres at the
National championships earlier in the month, informed the selectors that the Athens marathon does not fit into his programme.
The selectors have had to make a number of amendments to their original plans. As yet, Nick Sweeney has not withdrawn from the discus, although the latest medical reports on his damaged knee suggest that he will. A definite absentee is the Ulster 400 metres athlete Bryan Forbes.
Forbes, who rejected another invitation to represent Ireland earlier in the season, is a student at Loughborough College and, with dual nationality available to him, has apparently decided to keep his international options open for a little longer.
He was required in Athens as a member of the 4 x 400 metres relay squad, but with two members of the sprint relay formation, Gary Ryan and Paul Brizzell, capable of doubling up at the longer distance, his defection is not a serious problem.
Also out of the reckoning for the World championships, but for a vastly different reason, is Cormac Finnerty, the experienced
Mullingar athlete. Finnerty, a member of the Olympic squad last year, had hoped to get a qualifying time for the 5,000 metres at last
Saturday's meeting at Hechtel in Belgium, but in spite of a brave run, narrowly failed to do so.
It means that Mark Carroll will now be the sole Irish contender in the 5,000 metres. Carroll also ran in Hechtel and and was satisfied with a time of 13 minutes 11 seconds which took him into second place, some way ahead of Finnerty.
Another Irishman with reason to be satisfied with his form in
Hechtel was Tom McGuirk, who runs in the 400 metres hurdles in
Athens. He returned seasonal best figures of 46.88 when finishing third in the 400 metres flat race.
Britain's Jonathan Edwards yesterday brushed aside doubts about his fitness for the World championships and his defence of his triple jump title. The world record-holder declared that he had recovered from the heel injury which forced him to miss two international meetings during July and the British trials nine days ago.
