MARK CHRISTIE, one of the country’s most exciting athletes, is all set to bring down the curtain on his junior career with a stylish performance at the European Cross-country Championships in Heringsdorf, Germany, on Sunday.

MARIE DAVENPORT will provide Irish interest in Sunday’s New York City Marathon when she makes her debut over the distance alongside world record holder Paula Radcliffe, and Sonia O’Sullivan’s Australian training partner, Benita Johnson.

RACHEL AKERS (Scariff CC), who won both the senior girls discus and hammer at the Kit Kat Irish schools championships in Tullamore last year, begins to defend her titles at CIT in Bishopstown tomorrow at the Kit Kat Munster schools championships, starting at 9.30am.

FAVOURITE Andrew Ledwith (North Monastery) will have to reproduce the form he displayed at the national inter-club championships to lift the senior boys’ title at the Kit Kat Irish Schools Cross-Country in Antrim on Saturday.

AFTER wins in Belfast and Cardiff over the past two weekends, Cork’s Jamie McCarthy will be oozing confidence when he travels to Lisbon for Sunday’s junior international cross-country race.

WITH June 30 the cut off point for Olympic qualification, most athletes have their programmes in place for Athens but the High Performance Director, Elaine Fitzgerald, admitted that time is not on their side.

DONNACHA O’MAHONY (East Cork) rolled back the years to reclaim the Cork senior cross-country championship title while Freda Davoren (UCC AC) ran her first cross-country race in almost two years to claim her first county title at Inchigeela yesterday, when East Cork eventually won an enthralling team contest with their North Cork rivals.

ANNE LOUGHNANE (St. Raphael’s, Loughrea), set a new national junior and senior schools record in the 3,000m walk at the Kit Kat Irish Schools Championships at Tullamore on Saturday when the girls set three records.

ERIN KINNEAR (Victoria College) could emerge as the brightest star in the galaxy at the Kit Kat Irish Schools Track and Field Championships in Tullamore on Saturday (9 am) when the best and the brightest face each other in what promises to be an action- packed day.

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.

THE stamina of the world class racewalker was underscored at Inchigeela yesterday when Robert Heffernan turned in a power-packed display of front running to win the Cork senior cross-country championship title.