Cuddihy steals limelight with double
Going into the championships, the 22-year-old UCD medical student from Kilkenny was without a national senior title. Last year she was sidelined by a bout of glandular fever and injuries to both knees which necessitated surgery.
But her performance on Saturday left the sparse attendance gasping. She screamed off the bend in the final of the 200m with defending champion Emily Maher, also from Kilkenny, hopelessly adrift.
“I can’t believe it,” she admitted as she headed off to prepare for the heats of the 400m. “I am running personal bests every time I go out those days.”
With defending champion Karen Shinkins missing through injury, she powered into a headwind in the finishing straight to win in 51.28 secs.
Not alone was this a personal best performance — her previous best was 51.63 secs — but it was a championship best and close enough to Shinkins’ national record (51.07 secs) to indicate that this might also be just around the corner.
“Hopefully I’ll get the record this year. Gothenburg might be the place to do it. I would like that,” she said. “This has been a good year for me. I have not had any setback at all and today I felt strong. I could possibly have run faster but I did not want to go too hard coming into the wind. It was pretty strong in the finishing straight.”
Michelle Carey (Dublin Striders), winner of the 400m hurdles last year, took second place in 52.67 secs with Clare McGlynn (Templeogue) third in 56.24 secs and Claire McSweeney, a niece of the legendary Fanahan McSweeney, fourth in 56.61 secs.
Derval O’Rourke was always going to be the star attraction following her 60m hurdles victory at the world indoor championships in Moscow and she claimed her fifth 100m hurdles title in 13.24 secs.
It was her slowest time of the season but the windy conditions were never going to inspire heroics.
“In the past I would run against Susan (Smith) and there would be somebody to chase but when you are out there on your own it is different,” she said.
She flies to Stockholm tomorrow to race on Tuesday night and to Helsinki for another race on Wednesday night.
“This has only been my fourth race this year,” she said. “Really we would like another before the European championships but I am not sure if I can get one. But things could not be going better right now. I have had some very good training sessions and a really good one last Monday. After that Jim (Kilty) was talking of a really big performance — 12.6 or 12.5 — but we will have to wait and see.”
It was a spectacular weekend for Roisin McGettigan. On Saturday night she knocked over 13 seconds off her national 3,000m steeplechase record with a 9:32.04 run for third place in a quality field in Heusden -Zolder and within hours of her arrival back in Dublin she was lining up for the final of the women’s 800m.
She then ran another blistering race to take the title in 2:08.10 at the expense of Orla Drumm (UCC AC), 2:08.50, and Mary O’Connor (Ferrybank) 2:10.40.
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