McKiernan to lead Irish team

Athletics NewsNine years after winning the last of four consecutive silver medals, Catherina McKiernan will once again lead the Irish team into the World Cross Country championships, to be staged in Brussels on March 20th and 21st. Victory in Sunday's National Interclub championships secured McKiernan's selection for the event, which she will use as a springboard to an assault on Olympic qualification.

It was confirmed yesterday that Athletics Ireland (AAI) have abandoned plans to even consider the short-course race at the championships, and instead will enter men's and women's teams in the traditional long-course race only. It means the national short-course race in Dublin on Sunday week has effectively been made redundant.

But with Sonia O'Sullivan ruling herself out of Brussels through the combination of an early-season injury and the desire for a slow build-up to the Athens Olympics, the long-course race was clearly the only option for the Irish teams. The backbone of the men's team will be made up of athletes preparing for the London Marathon in April, and for them anything other than the 12km race would have been pointless.

As a result, the top six men's and women's finishers in Sunday's Interclub will make up the Irish teams - although the official selection will not be announced until later today. But almost certain to join McKiernan on the women's team are Maria McCambridge, Rosemary Ryan, Jolene Byrne, Pauline Curley and Fionnula Britton.

Similarly, the men's team will be led by Séamus Power, who regained his Interclub title on Sunday after a three-year gap, and the next five men home: Dermot Donnelly, Peter Mathews, Mark Kenneally, Killian Lonergan and Vinnie Mulvey.

For McKiernan, the return to the World Cross Country stage has not been without its difficulties, and it was 1997 in Turin when she last contested the event, finishing seventh. Though first concentrating on the marathon, most of the years since have been interrupted by injury, and before this season she was never in the running for selection.

Yet now, at the age of 34, her enthusiasm for the championships is back to where it was in the early 1990s, during which she won silver medals first in Boston in 1992, then Amorebieta (1993), Budapest (1994) and finally Durham (1995).

McKiernan has also made it clear that the championships will form a central part to her efforts to secure Olympic qualification, most likely in the 10,000 metres. A series of races have been laid out as part of that plan, continuing next Sunday at the Rás na hÉireann international cross country at Dundalk racecourse.

After Brussels comes the Great Ireland Run in the Phoenix Park on April 3rd, and from there she will turn her attention to the track and the 10,000 metres qualifying time of 31 minutes 45 seconds. McKiernan's best stands at 31:08.41 from 1995.

As previously announced, the AAI will be sending only two individual juniors - both men and women - to Brussels. Mark Christie of Mullingar, who was sixth in the European championships before Christmas, is set to be joined by Andrew Ledwith in the junior men's race.

Set to make her major international debut for Ireland in the junior women's race is Azmera Gebrezgi, who collected the Interclub junior title on Sunday. Though born in Eritrea, the 18-year-old has been residing in Dublin for the past two years and her Irish passport is expected within the coming days. For now, though, the second individual to be selected will be Linda Byrne, the runner-up on Sunday.

Finally, US-based Peter Coghlan has failed to secure a late qualifying time for the World Indoor championships, which begin in Budapest on March 5th. Coghlan clocked 7.80 seconds over the 60 metres hurdles at the weekend, but 7.75 was needed for selection. It also seems unlikely that a men's 400 metres relay team will be added to the nine-strong Irish team announced last Tuesday.