The Irish Examiner has been shortlisted in six categories for NewsBrands Ireland Journalism Awards 2018.

On the wall at his home in Tralee, etched in words big enough to see anytime his eyes wander from his work, Joe O’Connor has written a reminder:

Medals have a habit of distracting attention, bright and shiny as they are, so to get a feel for the current state of Irish athletics after the European Championships in Berlin you have to step back from Thomas Barr’s brilliant bronze and look at the week as a whole.

Seventeen Irish sporting organisations received welcome news yesterday with the announcement that Sport Ireland’s board approved an additional €1.5 million in high-performance funding.

Shock wasn’t the right word, nor could you say it was a huge surprise, so if anything Thomas Barr’s bronze medal at last night’s European Championships proved a delightful deliverance on his talent, an ode to his outstanding ability at the event they call the man-killer.

The planning started from his sick bed. It was August 2017, and Thomas Barr was lying in his hotel room in London, his World Championships brought to a grinding halt by gastroenteritis, which had reduced a world-class athlete to a sweating, vomiting wreck on the most important day of his year.

Medal hopes Thomas Barr and Ciara Mageean gave themselves the perfect send-off for next week’s European Championships in Berlin with foot-perfect performances at the Irish Life Health National Championships in Santry yesterday.

As weekends go, this was as good as it gets for Irish athletics: Two medals, five athletes, and one bright future ahead.

Few nations embrace their medal-winners quite like Ireland, a country that puts a higher premium on international success due to its rarity.

On Sunday, Gary O’Hanlon will line up at the London Marathon behind the world’s best: Eliud Kipchoge, Kenenisa Bekele and Mo Farah, rock stars of a sport he once thought had abandoned him, but in which, with each passing year, he’s flourishing ever more, writes Cathal Dennehy

Twenty years ago today, Marcus O’Sullivan ran his 100th sub-four-minute mile, the last major milestone in a career that ranks among the greats of Irish sport. But as the three-time world champion tells Cathal Dennehy, true fulfilment was only found once he stepped off the track

In December 2010, six young Irish distance runners claimed U23 gold at the European Cross Country Championships, but despite their relative youth, most of them have now retired from the sport. What lessons can be learned from how their careers played out? Cathal Dennehy tracked them down to find out.

The Cork woman who became an internet sensation this week following her astonishing ‘against-the-odds’ win in the 4x400-metre relay at the Irish University Athletics Championships has described the reaction as “absolutely insane”.

Athletics is braced for further blows to its credibility today when the second part of the World Anti-Doping Agency report into Russian doping is revealed, but Derval O’Rourke knew all along she was being cheated, writes Cathal Dennehy.

After the worst week in the history of the sport, IAAF president Seb Coe faces the unenviable task of guiding athletics through crisis and ending the doping culture, writes Cathal Dennehy.

FIONNUALA BRITTON hopes for more medal success at the European cross-country championships in the Spanish city of Toro tomorrow.

GARETH TURNBULL, Mary Cullen and Maria McCambridge will not contest Sunday’s European cross-country championships in Toro, Spain.

MARTIN FAGAN and Mary Cullen are named in the Irish senior teams for the European cross-country championships in Toro, near Madrid, on Sunday week.

Athletics Ireland today announced a 36-strong team for the European Cross Country Championships which take place on December 9 in Toro, Spain.

ATHLETICS IRELAND could host the 2009 European cross-country championships.

MARK CHRISTIE, winner of the national senior inter-counties title on Sunday in Dungarvan, has opted to compete in the Under-23 race at the European cross-country championships in Italy on Sunday week and Seamus Power, nine-time inter-counties champion, could be the man to replace him on the senior team.

MARK CHRISTIE (Westmeath) claimed his first national senior title with victory at the inter-counties cross-country championships at St Augustine’s College, Dungarvan, yesterday.

Colin Costello has withdrawn from the Irish junior men's team competing in this Sunday's European Cross-Country Championships in the Dutch city of Tilburg.

MULLINGAR clubmates Martin Fagan and Mark Christie could be reunited on the Irish cross-country team for the first time since 2001 when the squad for next month’s SPAR European Cross-Country Championships in Tilburg is announced.

MARK CHRISTIE is looking for a big performance at this year’s European cross-country championships in Tilburg, Holland, and has taken his preparations to a new level by travelling to Kenya to train at altitude.

Brendan O’Neill (St. Michael’s, Dublin) will be bidding to replicate his performance as a junior two years ago when he lines up for the under-17 race at the SIAB Schools Cross-Country International in Denbigh, Wales, tomorrow.

MARK HANRAHAN (Douglas Community School) turned in another power-packed performance to win the Kit Kat Munster Schools senior boys’ cross-country title at St Augustine’s College, Dungarvan, on Saturday and it was a performance to savour.