Leinster have three nominees for the European Player of the Year award.

If there is a more compelling sportsperson out there right now than Ruby Walsh, then they’ve yet to go mainstream, writes Brendan O’Brien

Tadgh Beirne is one of four Irish players nominated for the European Player of the Year award.

Gordon Elliott completed a treble with Tell us More, De Plotting Shed and Brelade in Naas to round off a remarkable weekend, adding to his six winners at the two-day Down Royal festival and a double in Cork yesterday.

Aileen Reid believes the lessons of London 2012 will stand her in good stead as she enters her second Olympic Games today.

Swimmer Nicholas Quinn on qualifying for Rio, punishing training regimes, and supporting Newcastle United.

Hurricane Fly is collecting the pension. Douvan is going chasing and Jezki is injured and out for the foreseeable future so it looks like it is going to be a drab hurdling season. Think again. There will be a thousand great stories through the winter and ten of them could be here.

Athletics Ireland has unexpectedly announced that national endurance coach Chris Jones will be leaving the organisation.

Fionnuala Britton will earn her 31st international cap at next month’s European cross country championships in Bulgaria.

IT was a return to Kenyan dominance at the SSE Dublin marathon yesterday but not without an Irish twist in the tale.

Technology is wonderful.

Athletics Ireland High Performance Director Kevin Ankrom has defended the decision to not follow the European marathon selection policy for the women’s team with the late inclusion of Fionnuala Britton and Sarah Mulligan by declaring it as only a guideline.

The shock announcement on Sunday that Fionnuala Britton will run in the marathon at the European Championships on August 16 is a high-risk strategy which has raised eyebrows in the athletics community.

The expected cross-country debate never materialised at the Athletics Ireland General Congress which finished ahead of schedule at the Moran’s Silver Springs hotel in Cork on Saturday, where Ciarán Ó Catháin was re-elected as president for a further two years.

The French-bred Upsie notched her fourth win from six starts since joining Willie Mullins when beating stable-companion Urticaire in the punchestown.com Mares Hurdle in Punchestown yesterday.

Derval O’Rourke and Ciarán Ó Lionáird have expressed disappointment at the level of funding they are set to receive in 2014.

Fionnuala Britton cut a frustrated figure when she finished fourth at the European Cross Country Championships in Belgrade yesterday, but vowed to bounce back from this disappointment.

While Fionnuala Britton heads to tomorrow’s 20th European-Cross Country Championships in Belgrade in search of a hat-trick of titles with customary quiet steely resolve, her bigger ambition is to ultimately join the likes of Sonia O’Sullivan and Catherina McKiernan as Ireland’s greatest distance runners.

By Will Downing

Smart watches are all the rage. Well, at least the notion of smart watches is. But are smart watches really worth the money? Will they rank high on wish lists for this holiday season? Will the segment all-out explode in 2014?

Athletics Ireland high performance director Kevin Ankrom believes the association are fronting up to the challenge of turning talented underage athletes into senior performers.

Fionnuala Britton’s decision to skip the remainder of the outdoor season was taken with a longer-term view, admitted coach Chris Jones.

Ireland’s double European Cross-Country Champion Fionnuala Britton will miss next month’s World Athletics Championships in Moscow after announcing she is to take an “extended break” from the sport.

Ireland have been dealt two serious blows ahead of the European team championships in Dublin this weekend.

Jose Mourinho says it took him “five minutes” of a meeting with Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich to agree a return to Stamford Bridge after six years away.

Jose Mourinho feels he returns to Chelsea as much a fan as he does the club’s eighth manager since he left in 2007.

Chelsea this afternoon confirmed the return of Jose Mourinho as manager on a four-year deal.

Robert Heffernan was a frustrated figure after his ninth place finish in 1:23:26 over 20km at the European Cup of Race Walking in Dudince, Slovakia yesterday as he took a heavy fall at 12km when in contention.

Athletics Ireland publicly rolled out their High Performance plan for the next Olympic cycle at the Gresham Hotel yesterday with the vision of “more Irish athletes winning on the world stage” and a target of 24 medals being won at major championships between 2013 and 2016.

Irish distance running has hit a few bum notes since the glorious ’80s. So can a classical musician who specialised in the French horn put the wind back in our endurance stars?

The Irish women’s European Cross-Country winning team will be amongst the medal favourites in the 40th edition of the IAAF World Cross-Country Championships in snow-swept Bydgoszcz, Poland tomorrow.

Athletics Ireland High Performance director Kevin Ankrom is “excited” about the prospect of hiring a national endurance coach — Ireland’s first full-time athletics coach — whom he hopes to identify next week after the interview process concludes today.

European Cross Country champion Fionnuala Britton is playing down her chances at the European Indoor Championships in Gothenburg this weekend.

With grown men banging the blue-boarded track and a raucous crowd standing on their feet as John Travers broke eight minutes for the 3,000m, it truly was Super Sunday at the Woodie’s DIY National Indoor Championships in Athlone in a day to remember for Irish athletics aficionados.

Fionnuala Britton was already looking to the future after yesterday’s sensational performance at the European Cross-Country Championships in snowy Budapest.

The words of encouragement from coach Chris Jones will fill Fionnuala Britton with confidence as she defends her European cross-country title in Budapest tomorrow.

If you didn’t know the back story, there would be questions for Aileen Morrison to answer.

Ciarán Ó Lionáird will face a defining moment in his career when he lines up for the first round heats of the men’s 1500m at the Olympic Stadium tonight (8.25pm).

Enniskillen's Gavin Noble is back on course to compete for Ireland in the triathlon at the London Olympics after he suffered a fractured shin in May.

Ireland's Aileen Morrison goes into the Kitzbühel World Triathlon Series in Austria on Saturday looking to improve on her recent performances that have seen her claim podium finishes in the European Cup, World Cup and most recently the World Series Races.