Catherina McKiernan will not attempt to take Sonia O'Sullivan's crown when the World Cross Country Championship is staged at Belfast next March.
Following McKiernan's third consecutive marathon success at Amsterdam on Sunday, her coach Joe Doonan confirmed yesterday that her training programme would be geared to another big marathon run in the spring. "The timing of the cross country championship does not allow us to run in Belfast," he said. "At that point Catherina will be in the final stages of her preparations for another marathon and it is simply not feasible to do the two."
Speaking at a press conference immediately after her latest road racing win, McKiernan said that she was still committed to winning the cross country championship - she finished second four times.
"Personally I would love to run in Belfast but that decision would have to be made in the light of how it would affect the rest of my programme in the new year," she said.
Given her high profile as a marathon runner, her decision to miss the race is scarcely unexpected but it will disappoint those who had hoped to watch her in a head-to-head championship race with O'Sullivan. By any reckoning, Ireland now has two of the outstanding long-distance runners in international athletics, but at this point there is no indication of a clash between the two.
It is a measure of McKiernan's growing stature as a road runner that she is likely to have her choice of competing in three of the most prestigious marathons in the spring, those in London, Boston and Rotterdam. After the high promise of her debut at the distance in Berlin, last April's success in London brought her to the attention of a much wider public and inevitably there will be pressure on her to defend her title.
Boston, where she finished second to Lynn Jennings in the 1992 cross country championship, would also have obvious appeal, but in terms of record breaking Rotterdam, with its flat terrain, may offer the most realistic option. It was here that Tegla Loroupe set her imposing world record of two hours 20 minutes and 47 seconds last April, and in a mixed race in which pacing is permitted it offers her a realistic chance of improving on the career best figures of 2:22.23 she recorded at Amsterdam.
Doonan is unshakeable in his belief that McKiernan will break it. "In normal conditions, I believe, she was on for a 2:20 run on Sunday," he said "That won't always be the case but given the right race and the right weather, she will take the record one day."
