Irish students shine in US

Athletics News round-up: Irish runners continue to impact on the US collegiate distance scene, despite a major decline in the numbers on scholarship. At the weekend's NCAA track and field championships in Sacramento, California, where qualification alone is highly competitive, Irish athletes won gold and silver, and took sixth in the particularly fast 800 metres.

Mary Cullen ended her four years at Providence College, Rhode Island, in the best way possible by winning the 5,000 metres title. And she did so in real style.

Sitting back during the opening laps, the 23-year-old from Sligo broke clear just under a mile from home, easily cracking the rest of the field.

Her winning time of 16:01.39 left Cullen over four seconds clear of Molly Huddle of Notre Dame with Michigan's Erin Webster third.

Cullen is reigning Irish champion at the distance and already holds the qualifying time for the European championships in Gothenburg in August, and in this sort of form she won't be too far off the mix for the leading places.

Only 28 Irish athletes are on scholarship across the US, about a third of what was there a decade ago, but in Providence College the tradition remains strong.

Mullingar's Martin Fagan, who like Cullen finished an excellent second over 10,000 metres in 28:41.41, having gone into the race ranked outside the top 20.

Fagan's time also qualifies him for the Europeans, adding to the 5,000-metre qualifying standard he achieved a few weeks back.

In one of the last races of the championships, Dublin's Thomas Chamney, who attends Notre Dame, ran a brave 800-metre final and ended up sixth in a personal best of 1:47.64.

Chamney needs 1:47.20 to qualify to Gothenburg.

Closer to home, another Dubliner, Vinny Mulvey, won the British AAA 10,000-metre title held in Watford on Saturday, clocking 28:58.29. Like Chamney's time, that's just short of qualification for Gothenburg.

At the same meeting Gary Murray clocked 3:43.88 over 1,500 metres and Linda Byrne ran 4:17.63.

Meanwhile, Dublin's David Gillick produced a superb personal best over 400 metres yesterday, clocking 45.80 seconds when finishing runner-up at the Geneva International meeting.

It improved the 45.93 he ran at the start of last summer before a back injury ruined his season and leaves the European Indoor champion on course to mix it with the best in Gothenburg.