Daly injury huge blow to Irish medal hopes

IRELAND’S medal hopes in the 4 x 400m relay at the European championships in Gothenburg in a months time suffered a severe setback at the weekend when Rob Daly, who also has an individual qualifying standard, tore a calf muscle at the BUPA Cork City Sports.

“It is not looking good at all,” his coach, Paddy Fay, admitted yesterday. “He just cannot put any weight on it at the moment so I would say the national championships are out.”

He pulled up in pain at The Mardyke on Saturday. He had felt a twinge earlier in the race but obviously left it too late.

It is unfortunate at this point in the season for the Dubliner, who is having a busy schedule on and off the track with his final Chartered Accountancy exams and his wedding coming up in September.

“OK, his injury is not as bad as we initially feared but it is serious enough and worrying and it is going to take time,” Paddy Fay said.

His absence will weaken the 4 x 400m squad in Gothenburg and Team Manager, Patsy McGonagle, will be eagerly awaiting the national championships to see who shows.

Four years ago in Munich the 4 x 400m squad set two national records in two days before ending up fifth in the European championships. In the meantime they won bronze medals at the world indoor championships.

“Whether or not we could win medals this year was the big question,” McGonagle said. “Certainly with a full strength and fit squad we could go very close. Apart from Rob Daly it appears we can write national champion, Tomas Coman, out of the equation.

“But still we have the likes of Antoine Burke running very well and then the women’s 4 x 400m squad is also very promising. We’ll just have to wait and see how things unfold over the next couple of weeks.”

David Gillick was competing over 400m in Salamanca last night. He opted for the 200m at the BUPA Cork City Sports on Saturday evening. He got Lane 1 which did not help his prospects of a very fast time but he still ran 21.60.

This year he has run 21.2 and 21.3 in his bid to improve his speed over that distance.

He has the AAA championships in Manchester the weekend after next and then he will probably compete in the 200m again at the national championships before heading off to Gothenburg.

At the moment he is ranked in the top 10 in Europe but two British runners ahead of him competed in the Commonwealth Games with there are just hundredths of a second separating some of them.

Paul Hession, Anna Boyle and Liam Reale will now be joined by Ciara Sheehy in Germany on Friday night. Ciara Sheehy was thrilled with her run (23.23 secs) at the Lee Strand International in Castleisland on Monday night and goes to the AAA championships. Ailish McSweeney, with her European qualifying standard since last season, will also be among the sprinters in Manchester as she continues her build up to Gothenburg.

Joanne Cuddihy from Kilkenny, a member of Paddy Fay’s squad, had impressive runs over 400m and 200m in Cork and Castleisland and she has European qualifying standards over both distances.

Derval O’Rourke will be back in action in Lucerne next Tuesday night. After equalling her national record (12.96 secs) at The Mardyke on Saturday she ran a smart 13.02 in Athens on Monday night.