Davenport’s season cut short by allergy problems

IRISH Olympian Marie Davenport has written off her track season this summer due to a severe problem with allergies.

The Connecticut-based Clarewoman has been laid low with sickness since returning to the United States from Ireland at the start of the month having won the Flora Mini-Marathon in Dublin.

“Each year it seems to get worse and worse with allergies,” Davenport said. “And this season is apparently one of the worst yet.

“I usually run in New York around this time of year in a 10K or mini-marathon but I’m getting really allergic to trees like oak and ash, everything. I just can’t really function that well. I did the 10K in Ireland, which went well, but for the last few weeks since I’ve been back, I’ve been sick. I’ve been really struggling with really bad allergies. The last few weeks have been brutal.

“So I’m not doing any track this summer, I’m just going to probably focus on some road races and maybe a marathon in the Fall.

“I’m hoping it will all calm down in the next couple of weeks.”

Davenport said she was aiming to run an Olympic standard mark this autumn in either the Chicago or the Twin Cities marathon, in Minneapolis — St Paul, both races renowned for producing fast times.

“With the Olympics in Beijing around the corner next year I want to see what I can do over a fast course and try and get the standard for next year.’’

Meanwhile Joanne Cuddihy has switched from the 200m to the 400m, her prime event, for Cork City Sports on Saturday afternoon when she will line up against a strong field which includes a two time Olympic gold medallist.

The Kilkenny doctor may not have won a medal at last year’s European championships in Gothenburg but she won hearts every time she stepped on to the track en route to the final.

The field for Saturday includes the Russian, Yelena Migunova, who posted her personal best for 400m at 50.97 last year and Joanne Cuddihy who reduced her best time to 51.09 secs during her European adventure and would almost certainly have reduced it further in the final were it not for the fact that she drew the inside lane.

Monique Hennagan from the USA, who joined the line-up yesterday, is an exciting athlete. She won a gold medal on the United States 4 x 400m team at the Olympic Games in Sydney, finished fourth in the individual 400m at the Athens Olympics where she again won a gold medal with the 4 x 400m relay team, and was American champion in 2004 and 2005.

She holds a Degree in Psychology from the University of North Carolina and has a wide range of events in repertoire. She was NCAA champion at 800m in 1996, won a silver medal at the world junior championships in 1994 (gold in the relay) and has bests of 11.26 secs for 100m, 22.87 secs for 200m and 2:02.5 for the 800m.

Paul Hession confirmed yesterday that he will not be doubling up in the 100m. Having set a new national record in that event he will be chasing the 200m record at The Mardyke.

Orla Drumm will face an interesting field when she lines up for the 1,500m. The UCC Medical Student has been joined by steeplechase record holder, Roisin McGettigan, and young Roseanne Galligan, who has come off an exciting US collegiate campaign.

The visitors include Oleysa Tyurina from Russia who has a personal best of 4:08.68 from last season (10:00.08 steeplechase) and America’s top 1,500m runner, Christin Wurth-Thomas, who posted her pb for 1,500m at 4:05.00 last year (800m 2:02.16).

There is another US athlete in the field, Amy Mortimer (4:06.00), as well as Hanna Carlsson from Sweden.