GARY RYAN from Nenagh became the first Irish sprinter for over a generation to attain the Olympic qualifying standard when he clocked 21 seconds for the 200 metres at a meet in Riga yesterday.
Indeed it has been quite a week for the 24 year old Kilcommon man, who lowered his own Irish 100 metre record to 10.54 sees for the second time in a week.
But unlike last week when the wind reading was negative, this time he was aided by a 2.2 metre per second following wind and the 100 metre time will not stand for record purposes. But the University of Limerick student will be pleased to have reached the qualification standard with his third placing in the 200 while he was second in the 100 metres.
Mark Mandy is another athlete displaying fine form and he too notched up another victory with a 2.24 metre clearance in the high jump, which was just shy of his Irish record, but inside the Olympic standard. His tussle with Antoine Burke in the national championships in a fortnight's time could be one of the highlights of the meet.
Daniel Caulfield was second in the 800 metres in 1 min 48.28 sees in a race won by Britain's Curtis Robb with 1.47.75.
Grainne Redmond was again inside the world junior standard for the 100 metres hurdles when clocking 14.16 seconds. Emma Nicholson was the best placed of the Irish women with a second in the 400 metres in a time of 54.42 sees while Susan Smith took third in the 400 metres hurdles with 57.20 sees.
Nick Sweeney continued his impressive early season form when he finished third in the discus at the Bruce Jenner Classic Grand Prix in San Jose on Saturday with a throw of 66.32 metres.
This effort is just a little over a metre down on his recent Irish record but, more importantly, the consistency which was missing from his earlier competitions is now clearly coming into his throwing, with five of his six efforts over 65 metres.
Indeed this was the Dubliner's finest series in a competition with his shortest effort measured at 63.76 metres.
The event was won by American Tony Washington with 67.18 metres, some way down on his 70 metres plus effort last week. Another American, Adam Setcliffe, found inspiration from the competition, which once again saw all the top US throwers in action, to send the platter out to 66.48 metres.
On the track at the same meeting, Tom McGuirk lowered his own Irish 400 metres hurdles record to 49.73 seconds when he finished fifth, just behind the Olympic champion Kevin Young who clocked 49.69 seconds.
This is an improvement of 0.25 seconds on McGuirk's previous best which he set last month. Like Sweeney, McGuirk will cross the Atlantic shortly, and both will be in action in the National Championships in Santry on July 15th and 16th.
. All Ireland champion John Lenihan easily won the Irish championship race on Ireland's highest mountain, Carrauntoohil, on Saturday.
Lenihan piled on the pressure to, establish a comfortable two minutes 13 seconds lead at the summit cross. But he eased back on the descent to save himself for yesterday's Crohane race which he also won.
