Record runs may well be only route to Olympics or Worlds

ATHLETICS:The plan was to start into my Annual Athletics Eulogy right here and get it over with, but that would be a little unfair: there is still some life left in 2010. Truth is athletics is the one sport that never sleeps, not even after a long-haul flight to Kuala Lumpur, cramped into economy class.

So that leaves me writing about a National Cross Country Championship in Gransha Park in Derry against the background of a late afternoon monsoon perfectly natural to this part of Malaysia. It does feel a little strange. There probably are worst places to spend the weekend than on this strange and mostly unspeakable foreign assignment known as the GAA All Star Tour, but I’m awaiting, with keen interest, news of tomorrow’s events in bitterly cold Derry. Of course the thing about cross country running is it’s never weather permitting.

And there is something special about the National Inter-counties Cross Country (not to be confused with the National Inter-clubs, which takes place at the other end of the season). It used to be that the inter-counties played second fiddle to the inter-clubs, but things have changed.

Tomorrow’s event doubles as the trial for the European Cross Country, which takes place two weeks later in Albufeira, in Portugal, and as far as we’re concerned, that’s become the peak of the cross country season. (For better or for worse, we now leave the World Cross Country to the East Africans. Thanks.)

Last year, you may remember, Dublin hosted the European Cross Country, with some considerable hype and fanfare. For some cursed reason we delivered our best performance in the organisational sense, rather that the actual competitive sense, as so many of our best runners somehow disappointed. It will be typical of Irish athletics to deliver some fine performances this time round, when we least expect it, nor indeed need it.

Tomorrow’s races in Derry are stripped of the two senior defending champions, but that shouldn’t take away from a good day’s racing. Mary Cullen, as we know, won’t be defending her women’s title as she’s nursing a broken collar bone, and Andrew Ledwith has decided to sit out the cross country season, preferring instead to put all his focus on the track season.

That leaves the senior men’s race relatively wide open, and while recently-crowned Dublin champion Joe Sweeney looks like the man to beat, look out for Séamus Power. He will actually celebrate his 40th birthday tomorrow, and has already achieved, and endured, so much over the course of his running career that it’s a wonder Power is still competing at all. Of course anyone who knows him will tell you he’s built of strong stuff, an unbelievably hardy character, and having won this title an incredible nine times in succession in the past, Power will always deserve a place on the starting line. I’m told he’s been nursing an injury and just hopes to make the Irish team for the European Cross Country, but don’t rule him out.

Fionnuala Britton will be looking to underline her fine form ahead of the Europeans, and unless she runs the wrong way, should win the senior women’s title. There also promises to be another exciting display from that enormously talented junior Ciara Mageean, who may not be a cross country specialist, but has every chance of mixing it with the best Europeans in two weeks’ time.

Mageean has already had an outstanding 2010. In fact one thing that can be confidently reflected on at this stage of the year is the amount of national records set in 2010, because in the track and field sense, the season is effectively over: and by my calculations, a total of 39 national records were either broken or equalled this year, and Mageean accounts for three of them.

The Down youngster first broke the Irish junior indoor 800 metres record, running 2:07.89 in Belfast, back on February 6th. She then improved that to 2:07.82 in Birmingham a few weeks later, before running that sensational Irish junior 1,500 metres record of 4:09.51 on route to winning the silver medal at the World Junior Championships in July. The fact that Mageean is still running competitively at this stage of the season is testament to the smart planning of her coach Eamonn Christie, although it helps too that she’s taken a year out before pursuing her collegiate career – which we all await with great interest.

Only 13 of those 39 national records set this year were in the senior ranks, and the rest in the junior or youth ranks, though no harm. Our middle-distance prospects aren’t exactly glowing these days, but it should be noted that Paul Robinson from Kildare ran an Irish junior mile record of 4:00.93 in August. That sort of time speaks for itself.

Mark English from Donegal also displayed considerable potential in qualifying for the World Youth Olympics in Singapore with an Irish youths 1,000 metre record of 2:24.14, and young Kate Veale from Waterford also continued her record-breaking spree in the underage walks by setting seven national records this year alone.

Probably the most significant national record broken this year was the women’s senior 100 metres record, which, as I’ve recently recounted, fell to Ailis McSweeney, who ran 11.40 seconds last July. However, that time still won’t qualify her for the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, next August. Last weekend the IAAF announced the qualifying standards for those championships – which are also likely to be the standards for the London Olympics in 2012 – and in most cases things have gotten even more difficult.

The men’s 1,500 metres A-standard is now 3:35.00, compared to 3:36.20 for the Berlin World Championships in 2009, and the men’s 10,000 metres A-standard is now a seriously quick 27:40.0, compared to 27:47.0 in 2009.

I hate to say it but there is now a very real danger that Ireland won’t have any representatives in the men’s distance races at next summer’s World Championships, although I hope I’m wrong about that. If fact not only has the IAAF made the qualifying standards more difficult, they’ve also tightened up the qualifying period – which for most events effectively requires athletes qualifying next season, rather than carrying over qualifying marks from this season, as has been the case for previous World Championships.

So, while it’s great to see so many national junior and youth records set in 2010, there are several cases now where only breaking national senior records will see our athletes qualify for the Olympics or World Championships. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I wonder how many new records we’ll have to reflect on at the end of 2011.

That, naturally, is a topic for another day.