The recently-crowned European marathon champion Manuela Machado will face Sonia O'Sullivan in next Sunday's BUPA Great North Run in England.
The Portuguese athlete, fully recovered from her success when retaining her title a month ago in Budapest, has been drafted in to replace Scotland's Liz McColgan, who withdrew from chasing a fourth GNR success with an ankle injury a fortnight ago. McColgan has being spending a lot of time in Ireland with Limerick-based physiotherapist Ger Hartman in the hope of regaining race fitness.
Now Machado, third in 1995, will start as favourite in a field which includes half-marathon debutante O'Sullivan, who achieved a unique 5,000 and 10,000 metres double at the European Championships in the Hungarian capital Budapest. O'Sullivan is also the double champion in the World Cross Country Championships which she won in Morocco in March.
"It should prove a very interesting race with Manuela stepping down to half her favourite distance and Sonia tackling the 13 miles seriously for the first time," said former Olympic 1500 metres silver medallist Peter Elliott, who is putting together the elite field.
The Irish Sports Council's weekend workshop at the National Coaching and Training Centre (NCTC) in Limerick set in motion the international carding scheme for players and athletes.
The Player Athlete Card for Excellence (PACE) will provide both elite and aspiring sportspeople with a range of services including sports science and medical support, career planning and counselling, and access to training facilities. It will also target four main stages of development - junior, developmental, international and world class.
The carding scheme will supplement the financial support already announced by the Sports Council under the Department of Tourism, Sport and Recreation and will be co-ordinated by the NCTC services at the University of Limerick. There are a number of conditions under the scheme that include close contact with the relevant National Governing Body (NGB), participation in national championships, and subscription to the anti-doping programme of the Sports Council.
The PACE cards can be used by athletes to access services in over 250 locations around the country with specific criteria identified by each sport establishing the players and athletes eligible for the different categories. A total of 170 athletes, representative of 25 sports, have initially signed up and the support will be reviewed on a case by case basis depending on individual progression.
The weekend session was attended by over 100 leading players and athletes as well as coaches and representatives of each National Governing Body. John Treacy, chairman of the Sports Council, welcomed the initiative as "providing meaningful support to our top players and athletes". Other speakers included Brendan Mullen and Sonia O'Sullivan, both members of the Player/Athlete Advisory Group.
