A full strength South African team will be among the chief overseas attractions for Saturday's Dublin International in Santry Stadium - the first such athletics meeting in the capital in recent years, writes Ian O'Riordan.
The meeting also serves as an international match between teams from Ireland, England, South Africa and Wales. The Irish selection, which was confirmed yesterday, includes Olympic qualifiers Paul Brizzell at 200 metres, James Nolan at 1,500 metres, high jumper Brendan Reilly and John Menton in the discus.
The women's team will also include Sydney-bound sprinter Sarah Reilly, who recently improved the national 200 metres record to 23.23, while Susan Smith-Walsh - who ran a season's best of 55.69 in Barcelona on Tuesday - competes over her familiar 400 metre hurdles. Emily Maher and Ciara Sheehy are also selected for the sprint events and are eager for some strong competition in an attempt to achieve the standard for Sydney.
With the cancellation of the Cork City Sports this summer, the meeting is set to provide the only occasion of the season for home-based athletes to enjoy some major competition on Irish soil. Visiting athletes from United States, New Zealand and Japan will ensure depth and quality in a number of events, especially the middle distance races.
Irish Team: Men - 100m: G Ryan, M Howard; 200m: P Brizzell, G Ryan; 400m: R Daly, P McKee; 800m: D Dineen, C McLean; 1,500m: J Nolan, C Smith; 5,000m: TBC; 110m hurdles: P Conroy, T Flannery; 400m hurdles: I Nealy, S McDonald; High Jump: B Reilly, A Burke; Shot: J Leahy, I McMullan; Discus: J Menton, J Farrelly; Javelin: D Kelly, N Tuckey; Hammer: J Thompson, M Grace.
Women - 100m: S Reilly, E Maher; 200m: C Sheehy, E Maher; 400m: M McCarthy, M Monaghan; 800m: G Nolan, F Davoren; 1,500m: N Beirne, AM Larkin; 5,000m: A Keenan-Buckley, V Vaughan; 100m hurdles: D O'Rourke, T Stephens; 400m hurdles: S Smith-Walsh, F Kavanagh; Long Jump: A Furlong, S Colhoun; Hammer: E O'Keeffe, N Coffey; Triple Jump: S Hoey, C Hannafin; Shot: E O'Keeffe, A O'Brien.
Athletics: Michael Johnson has backtracked on his decision to give up the 200m. On Tuesday he said he was not ruling out a return to the event.
The reigning Olympic 200m and 400m champion wrote on a website on Monday that he was giving up the 200m, saying, "No more 200s for me. There's no reason for me to run 200s."
But now Johnson and his coach, Clyde Hart, said he would likely run the race in future years and only meant he would not run it again this year.
Motor Sport: German driver HeinzHarald Frentzen has extended his contract with the Jordan Formula One team until the end of the 2002 season.
"I can now say that I will be driving for Jordan for the next two years, and for Honda who will supply us with a new works engine from 2001," Frentzen said ahead of Sunday's German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.
Golf: Irish national champion Graeme McDowell continued his brilliant form at Castlerock yesterday when he carded his second 69 in the World Universities' Championship. McDowell leads the men's individual list by two strokes from three players, including South Africa's Johan Foster who ripped the course apart.
Voster, from Port Elizabeth, fired a stunning 64 (nine under) to trim three shots of the existing course record. McDowell's performance has helped Ireland to stay top of the men's team leaderboard on 426, two shots ahead of Great Britain.
Cricket: The Indian state of Gujarat has dropped a chapter on former cricket captain Kapil Dev from a school textbook following allegations of his involvement in a match-fixing scandal, a state minister has said. The western state's education department dropped the lesson called "World of Kapil Dev" from a secondary level English language book after students questioned the chapter that featured Dev as a national hero.
Dev, who led India to a World Cup victory in 1993 and is now the country's coach, has denied allegations by former test cicketer Manoj Prabhakar that he offered money to his colleagues to play below par.
