O’Rourke confirms Valencia exit after poor Finland run

DERVAL O’ROURKE finally confirmed that she won’t be defending her 60m hurdles title at the World Championships in Valencia next week after a disappointing run in Tampere.

Since her run in Leipzig a couple of weeks ago it was generally accepted that she would not go to Valencia. But she decided to give it one last attempt in Finland where she ran 8.10secs — was way outside what she had expected — placing her 31st in the world.

While she is bitterly disappointed about not being in a position to defend her title in Valencia she will now set about preparing for the Olympics.

Her Leevale clubmate, Ailish McSweeney, was selected by AAI to go to the World Championships on foot of her recent good performances.

It will be remembered that she roomed with Derval O’Rourke when she won her 60m hurdles title in Moscow two years ago but her form dipped subsequently.

She has finished within 100th of a second of the qualifying standard in her recent races and it is generally felt she would have achieved the mark in Leipzig had her starting blocks not slipped.

She won a silver medal in the 100m at the world student games in Turkey in 2005 and reclaimed the national indoor 60m title this year at the Odyssey Arena.

She joins James Nolan who has qualified at 1,500m and who was just a 10th of a second outside Marcus O’Sullivan’s 23-year-old Irish record for 1,000m at the recent indoor meeting in Stockholm.

He is a former European indoor silver medallist over 1,500m and under-23 silver medallist over 800m and he finished sixth in the final of the 1,500m at the World Indoor Championships in Moscow two years ago.

Team Manager Patsy McGonagle said it was great to see James Nolan and Ailish McSweeney back at the World Championships.

“With the majority of athletes concentrating on their outdoor performances ahead of Beijing we were always going to have a small team,” he said. ” However James is highly experienced indoors at European and World level and he has the confidence to do well in Valencia. Ailish has been so close to qualifying this season and this will now give her the opportunity to improve her indoor times and gain experience in a world-class field.”

Meanwhile, Paul Hession showed that he has come out of his South African training camp in top shape when he set a new Irish record in the rarely-run indoor 100m in Tampere on Wednesday night, when he won the race in 10.36secs.