O’Rourke continues progress by setting new national record

DERVAL O’ROURKE broke her national 100m hurdles record with a 12.92 secs run for fourth place at last night’s Grand Prix meeting in Lausanne with a promise of better to come at Friday night’s Golden Gala meeting in Rome.

At the same meeting, China’s Liu Xiang smashed the 110m hurdles world record with a time of 12.88.

The Cork athlete, who set the national record at 12.96 secs in 2003, was foot perfect on a night that was perfect for athletics in the Stade Olympique de la Pontaise. French all-rounder Eunice Barber won in 12.80 secs from Glory Alozie, the Spanish champion, 12.82 and Danielle Carruthers (USA), 12.91.

Barber, who was born in Sierra Leone, holds French records at long jump and heptathlon as well as the African heptathlon record and Sierra Leone records at 100m hurdles, long jump, shot putt, javelin and heptathlon. She became a French citizen in 1999.

Alozie has been based in Spain since 1997 and became a Spanish citizen in 2001. She won the European indoor 60m hurdles title in 2002 but was not allowed to keep it as she was ruled ineligible for international competition until later that year. This year she finished second to O’Rourke in the final of the 60m hurdles at the world indoor championships in Moscow while Danielle Carruthers, who was third last night, finished fourth.

O’Rourke will be happy to finally break her old record. She damaged her foot in the run to the tape when she set it in Germany in 2003 and took that injury with her to the world championships in Paris. Having equalled it twice in wind-assisted races, she equalled it legally at the BUPA Cork City Sports on Saturday week and, after that, settled for a 13.03 in Athens. Now that she has finally broken the record she can set her sights on greater things. “I think she will run 12.86 secs in Rome on Friday night now that she has got the weight of the old record off her shoulders,” her coach, Jim Kilty, predicted last night.

“And I would predict that she will run 12.80 at the European Championships in Gothenburg next month and that will be good enough to win her a medal. I know she will rise to the occasion there.

“Coming off her injury, she has been concentrating on hurdling over the past three weeks. She has done so much work over the hurdles that she has had little time for speed work. But she will be getting down to that next week along with Ailish McSweeney and Ciara Sheehy and she will improve her time over the hurdles as a result of that.”

She was disappointed to find herself in the B race when she arrived in Lausanne but went in as the second slowest athlete in the field and came out with a new national record. The A race was won by Michelle Perry in 12.43, the fastest time this year, from fellow American, Damu Cherry, in 12.44.

Olympic champion Liu had jointly held the previous world best of 12.91 seconds for the 110m hurdles with Britain’s Colin Jackson.

“I never thought I could break the world record. I’m feeling very tired, very happy and very excited,” he said.