When four into three means one just can't go

ATHLETICS: ALL FOUR of them have run similar times, are frequent training partners, and – to top it all – good friends, but one of them must make way for the other three in the race for Olympic marathon selection. In the words of Caitriona Jennings, "it's going to be devastating" for whoever is left behind.

Ireland hasn’t sent a women’s A-standard athlete to the Olympic marathon since Seoul in 1988. Now four of them come along at the same time but for one of the qualifiers it’s going to end in tears.

“It’s just a very difficult situation, terrible really,” says Jennings, a sister of former Irish international rower Sinead, and at age 31 a relative latecomer to international distance running. “Obviously you want to do everything possible to be there yourself, but at the same time you don’t want one of the other girls not to go, when you know what it means to them too.’’

Jennings has just taken a four-month leave of absence from work as a tax adviser with PricewaterhouseCoopers. “I’ve taken the time off work now, because you have to train as if you are going to London. I wouldn’t like to be one of the selectors, but there’s no way you could decide on a trial now, even say a half marathon. It’s a completely different event, and doesn’t really reflect how good you’ll run in the marathon. Can you imagine turning around to Usain Bolt and saying ‘if you win the 800m trial, you can run the 100m in the Olympics?’ So the best solution is tell us now, instead of just prolonging it.”

A native of Letterkenny, Jennings now lives and trains in Dublin, with Rathfarnham AC, while Maria McCambridge, formerly of Dundrum South-Dublin, now runs with Letterkenny AC, where she lives with her husband Gary, and 11-month old son Dylan.

At 36, McCambridge is experiencing a second coming of sorts. She was targeting London long before giving birth, just five months before she ran the Dublin marathon last October.

She missed out on Olympic selection in 2000, but was eventually selected in 2004, late on, having achieved the A-standard just after the early cut-off date.

“I know what it’s like to be left at home,” she says. “I know, possibly, people bring up age with me, but I don’t think it is a factor. I had a few bad years in 2007 and 2008 but I’m much healthier now, and I’m absolutely loving it. But at this stage you’d just like to know if you’re selected, so you could commit yourself to your programme.

“The Americans selected in January, the British last week, and even the Kenyans know, and they had a much bigger headache than us.”

The other two qualifiers, Linda Byrne and Ava Hutchinson, both still run for Dundrum-South Dublin, even though Hutchinson is now based in England.

As national marathon champion, Byrne can feel most confident about selection, not that she’s relying on that.

“To have to leave one behind is going to be very disappointing,” she says, “especially as we all get on, and are all friends. We just all have to keep our fingers crossed. But I really don’t know the exact selection criteria, except that it’s based on past performances, and maybe the races that we’ve been in against each other.

‘‘But they should have made the national marathon a qualifier, like it was in some previous years.”