Gillick still has sights set on Helsinki

ATHLETICS: A combination of injury, loss of form and retirement means Ireland will be sending possibly their smallest ever team to the World Athletics Championships, which begin in Helsinki in just under three weeks' time.

This weekend's National Championships in Santry marks the final chance for qualification, and while 22 athletes have attained the necessary standards to date, less than half of those are set to travel.

Among those missing out will be 5,000-metre specialist Alistair Cragg, whose lower back injury has forced him to miss the entire season. High jumper Adrian O'Dwyer has also spent most of the summer recovering from a foot injury and won't compete, while Peter Coghlan (110 metre hurdles) and Nicky Sweeney (discus) have both officially retired.

Walkers Gillian O'Sullivan and Jamie Costin are still on the slow road to recovery from the injuries that forced them out of the Athens Olympics. Mark Carroll has given up his target of reaching the 10,000 metres qualifying time after dropping out of a race in New York on Friday night, and the likes of Paul Hession (200 metres), Tomás Coman (400 metres) and Freda Davoren (1,500 metres) have also seen the best part of their season ruined by injury.

One athlete still desperately keen to run in Helsinki is David Gillick. He was back in Dublin yesterday still assessing the extent of the lower back injury that forced him to withdraw from the 400 metre final at the European Under-23 Championships in Erfurt, Germany on Saturday night. Although he has the B-standard required for Helsinki, Gillick is expected to run at the National Championships in order to gain selection.

"At this stage I'm just not sure if I'll be able to run at the weekend," he explained yesterday evening. "I'll be seeing the physio all week, but I really don't want to hinder my chances of running in Helsinki by trying to come back too fast. But I may have to run if I want to be selected."

Gillick will discuss the matter with Athletics Ireland, and sounded reasonably optimistic that he could come right again for Helsinki: "The only positive thing is that there's nothing torn, and there's no tissue damage. It's just a problem with the lumbar area of the spine, that's sending a pain down my hamstring. It did flare up a before the Cork City Sports two weeks ago, but then seemed to clear up before the weekend.

"After the heat on Thursday, though, it flared up again, and was worse again after the semi-final. I desperately wanted to run the final on Saturday, but it just wasn't worth the risk. I did the warm-up up and everything, but I knew I wouldn't be able to attack the race they way I needed to. And I wanted a medal. Fourth or fifth was no good. My coach Jim Kidd just told me not to chance it. And I was gutted to miss out.

"If I'd had one day's rest before the final I might have been okay. So it's a big disappointment. That was the championships I wanted to do well in ever since winning the European Indoors."

Sonia O'Sullivan finds herself in a somewhat similar position to Gillick in that she will wait until later in the week before deciding if she'll compete in Santry. She has effectively ruled out running in Helsinki - where she has the A-standard in both the 5,000 metres and marathon - but was hopeful of competing in the 5,000 metres at Santry this weekend.

Last weekend, however, she dropped out of the British Championships with four laps remaining suffering from a heel bone injury. Today she'll visit Gerard Hartmann's clinic in Limerick, hoping he can get her right by Sunday. "The problem with the injury is that I can run in a straight line, but it hurts when I run around the bends," explained O'Sullivan. "And there are a lot of bends in the 5,000 metres. So depending on what Gerard says, I'll decide if I can run and what event to run."

Among the few athletes coming into form at the right time are Maria McCambridge (5,000 metres), Derval O'Rourke (100 metre hurdles) and Roisín McGettigan (3,000 metre steeplechase). Athletics Ireland will finalise the team for Helsinki on Sunday, but it's already clear that only a handful of the 22 qualifiers will be available for selection.