Familiar rivals to test O’Rourke in Belfast

WORLD indoor 60m hurdles champion Derval O’Rourke, who did not compete last year, will be surrounded by familiar faces when she bids to reclaim her national 60m hurdles title at this month’s Woodies DIY Irish Indoor Championships at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast.

At the corresponding meeting two years ago, O’Rourke defeated world outdoor bronze medallist, Delloreen Ennis-London in an Irish record time of 7.90. A few weeks later she won gold (60m hurdles) at the world indoors in Moscow before taking silver in the Europeans in Gothenburg for the 100m hurdles.

She will be hoping for more of the same in advance of the world indoor championships in Valencia, on the first weekend in March when she will be defending her title.

The line-up in Belfast will include 24-year old Jenny Kallur, twin sister of Susanna Kallur who is the current European hurdles champion indoors and outdoors and ranked second in the world last year.

Jenny took the silver medal behind Susannah in the 60m hurdles event at the Europeans in 2005.

The Swede’s current indoor time should provide ideal competition for O’Rourke who beat her comprehensively when taking the European outdoor silver medal behind Susannah in 2006 in a new Irish record of 12.72.

Also taking the start line will be Kallur’s training partner Christina Vukicevic. The 20-year-old Norwegian is the current world junior silver medallist from Beijing in 2006 where her national record time of 13.34 seconds was a mere one hundredth of a second behind the winner Shtepa of Russia and proceeded to record a commendable 13.07seconds at the world championships at Osaka last year.

It has also been confirmed that Kenyan 800m runner-up Richard Kiplagat will line up alongside Limerick’s Liam Reale who got the silver medal at the Odyssey last year behind another Kenyan, Justus Koech.

The event also incorporates the Phoenix “Olympic Flames’ Age Group Championships and also a ‘Search for a Star’ Primary School Initiative.