DERVAL O’ROURKE has been offered a lane in the women’s 100m hurdles at the Golden League meeting in Zurich next Friday night.

Eileen O’Keeffe was unable to secure a place in Saturday’s Hammer final after today’s qualification round.

FORGET Usain Bolt’s 100m and 200m nights, the first session to be sold out at this year’s world championships at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin was the women’s hammer final on Saturday night when Betty Heidler, one of Germany’s two defending champions, will command centre stage.

THOMAS CHAMNEY is named on the Irish team in both the 800m and 1,500m for the world athletics championships in Berlin, ruling out arch rival David Campbell, who had been hoping for the 800m berth.

MIDDLE distance fans could be in for a double treat at the Woodies DIY national track and field championships at Santry’s Morton Stadium tomorrow with the possibility of a head to head between Thomas Chamney and David Campbell in both the 800m and the 1,500m finals.

EILEEN O’KEEFFE made Irish athletics history when finishing sixth in the final of the hammer throw at the World Championships in Osaka two years ago.

SPRINTERS Paul Hession (Athenry AC) and Derval O’Rourke (Leevale AC) will captain the Irish team to compete in the European Team championships in Slovakia this weekend.

LONG before yesterday’s qualification rounds of the women’s hammer in Beijing, there were doubts about Eileen O’Keeffe’s wellbeing, even about her participation.

There was a mixed morning at the Olympic Stadium in Beijing for the trio of Irish athletes competing this morning.

EILEEN O’KEEFFE has suffered a setback that could affect her performance if not her participation in the qualification rounds of the women’s hammer on Monday.

JOANNE CUDDIHY has been given the all-clear to compete in the women’s 400m at the Olympic Games and gets her campaign underway on Saturday morning (5.10am Irish time).

EILEEN O’KEEFFE has eased fears over her knee injury, throwing 5kg and 7kg hammers at the Irish training camp in Matsue, according to Irish team manager, Patsy McGonagle.

THERE was further concern for Irish team manager, Patsy McGonagle, on the eve of the Olympic team’s departure for the pre-Olympic training camp in Matsue when middle distance runner, Alistair Cragg, pulled out of the 3,000m race at the Super Grand Prix in Monte Carlo last night.

DERVAL O’ROURKE is resting the groin injury that has cut short her Olympic preparations and is being treated by the Athletics Ireland medical staff under Dr Bill Cuddihy.

PAUL HESSION ran another seasonal best for third place in the 200m while two more third places for David Gillick in the 400m and Alistair Cragg in the 3,000m at the Aviva Grand Prix in Crystal Palace underscored a weekend of highs and lows for Ireland’s Beijing-bound athletes.

EILEEN O’KEEFFE has withdrawn from the featured hammer throw at tonight’s Brother Ireland Morton Memorial Meeting at Morton Stadium, citing a knee injury.

PAUL HESSION was in sensational form at the Woodies DIY national track and field championships at Morton Stadium yesterday and promised more fireworks in his favoured 200m at next weekend’s Super Grand Prix at Crystal Palace.

IRISH paralympian Jason Smyth has the talent to compete in the London Olympics, his coach, Stephen Maguire, claimed last night.

CAROLINA KLUFT has abandoned her hopes of competing at Cork City Sports on Saturday as a slump in form has sent the Olympic, world and European champion back to her training base in Sweden for some fine tuning.

KILKENNY’S Eileen O’Keeffe was the big winner at Saturday night’s inaugural Athletics Ireland National Athletics awards in Dublin.

PAUL HESSION is set to rejoin the top 200m runners in the world at the Van Damme Memorial Golden League Meeting in Brussels on September 14.

EILEEN O’KEEFFE ended her world championships adventure in dramatic fashion last evening when finishing sixth in the final of the women’s hammer with a best throw of 70.93 metres.

EILEEN O’KEEFFE faces the most exciting assignment of her athletics career to date when she contests the final of the women’s hammer competition at the world championships in Osaka today (1.30pm Irish time).

EILEEN O’KEEFFE had only to make a very brief visit to the circle to qualify for tomorrow’s final of the women’s hammer at the world championships in Osaka.

Roisin McGettigan and Fionnuala Britton kick off a potentially exciting future for Irish athletics at the World Championships beginning in Osaka on Saturday.

THE ‘very fast’ track in Osaka where the world championship medals will be decided the week after next will throw up some surprises, according to Ireland’s double European indoor 400m champion, David Gillick.

A SQUAD that is young enough to form the nucleus of Ireland’s Olympic team for London 2012 will represent Ireland at the IAAF world championships in Osaka in two weeks.

DERVAL O’ROURKE will follow a familiar path when she concludes her preparations for the world championships in Germany over the weekend.

Ireland will field a small but strong team at the IAAF World Athletics Championships in Osaka next month.

ATHLETICS IRELAND last night announced their provisional team for this year’s World Championships, in Osaka, Japan (August 25 — September 2).

Athletics Ireland have announced their provisional team for this year’s World Championships, which take place in Osaka, Japan from the August 25 to September 2.

EILEEN O’KEEFFE launched herself into 13th position in the global rankings for the year when she took her national record to 73.21 metres en route to a seventh successive hammer throw title at the Woodies DIY National Track and Field Championships at Morton Stadium on Saturday.

EILEEN O’KEEFFE has had one eye on the weather forecast in the hours leading up to today’s defence of her hammer title at the Woodies DIY national track and field championships at Morton Stadium.

EILEEN O’KEEFFE could break the Irish record in the hammer for a third time in just over a week if things go according to plan at the Lee Strand international track and field meeting in Castleisland tonight.

AFTER breaking the national 100m record for the second time this season with 10.18 secs for second place Saturday, Paul Hession put the finishing touches to a sensational weekend at the European Cup in Vaasa, Finland, by beating European silver medallist, Johan Wissman (Sweden), in the 200m yesterday.

DERVAL O’ROURKE renews rivalry with European indoor and outdoor hurdles champion Susanna Kallur at the European Cup in Vaasa, Finland this weekend on a crucial weekend for Irish athletics.

DERVAL O’ROURKE runs in the Grand Prix meeting in Budapest tonight — lining up against a strong field for the 100m hurdles in better conditions than she experienced at The Mardyke last weekend.

ALISTAIR CRAGG has returned to Arkansas for treatment on his Achilles tendon following his mishap in the final of the 5,000m at the European track and field championships in Gothenburg.

IRELAND’s Paul McKee must launch his European Championship campaign from lane nine when the first-round heats of the 400 metres get under way today.

DEIRDRE RYAN is on course to win back to back UK and Irish high jump titles after winning the AAA championships in Manchester when she set a new national high jump record at 1.92m.

LIMERICK man Liam Reale added his name to the growing list of qualifiers for the European championships when he finished second in the elite men’s 1,500m race at last weekend’s Boston High Performance meeting.

MICHAEL QUINLAN, one of the longest serving members of the executive of the Athletic Association of Ireland (AAI), could become a casualty of the new structure that has been put in place to govern the sport when the chairs of the new committees are elected at next weekend’s annual congress in Limerick Junction.

European Indoor 400m Champion David Gillick will be Ireland’s flag bearer at the World University Games in Izmir today.

EILEEN O’KEEFFE failed to make the final of the women’s hammer at the world championships in Helsinki yesterday.