O'Keeffe shows form for Helsinki

ATHLETICS/Dublin International: As the final tune-up for the World Championships in Helsinki, the Dublin International meeting probably served its purpose - even if the atmosphere and excitement in Santry on Saturday were a million miles from big-time athletics. Only five of the 12 Irish who head to Helsinki later this week competed, but all showed encouraging form.

Eileen O'Keeffe quietly stole the spotlight, once again extending her Irish hammer record with a superb throw of 69.36 metres. The Kilkenny athlete is set to become the first Irish woman hammer thrower to compete at the World Championships, and at 23 is on the verge of a major breakthrough. Her previous best of 68.14 was easily enough to win the previous weekend's national title, and although Saturday's throw still ranks O'Keeffe only 30th in the world, she will definitely be eyeing the 70-metre line in Helsinki.

Paul Hession was eager for a good run in Santry as he hadn't raced in over five weeks because of a lower-back injury. His third-place finish in the 200 metres in 20.89 seconds was encouraging and there were no lingering effects of the injury. The win went to Germany's Fredrick Helmke in 20.54. Helsinki has probably come too soon for the Galway man, but he is hopeful of racing himself back into shape and heading to the World Student Games in Turkey a week later searching for a medal.

Peter Coghlan and Derval O'Rourke produced their smoothest runs of the season over the high hurdles. Coghlan came a close second to England's Andy Turner in a season's best of 13.63, while O'Rourke eased to victory in the 100 metres version in 12.97. And both will be thinking about progressing to the latter rounds in Helsinki.

Some questions still surround the form of James Nolan, Ireland's only men's middle-distance representative in Helsinki.

A week after running his fastest 1,500 metres time in two years he was caught for pace in the final strides of the Morton Mile, ending up third in 4:01.36. Mark Christie was just a foot behind in 4:01.65.

Some disastrous pacemaking, which included a pedestrian third lap of 65 seconds, wrecked the chances of a four-minute mile.

While Yousef Abdi of Australia took the win 4:01.13, there was some consolation for the home crowd as new European junior champion Colin Costello broke Ray Flynn's 29-year-old Irish junior record of 4:02.6 - he finished sixth in 4:01.83.

Costello was probably a little tired from his European junior victory of a week ago, but still displayed courage when belting into the lead going into the last lap, and had the third lap not been so slow he would surely have followed in the footsteps of Roger Bannister.