Drop in form sees Kluft opt out of Cork meet

CAROLINA KLUFT has abandoned her hopes of competing at Cork City Sports on Saturday as a slump in form has sent the Olympic, world and European champion back to her training base in Sweden for some fine tuning.

With 13 gold medals and two bronze from 16 major championships, the Swedish superstar made a sensational decision this year not to defend her Heptathlon title at the Beijing Olympics — opting instead for the long jump.

But she has failed to impress in any of her recent events to date — and has decided to go back home to train.

“We had an email from her father at the weekend telling us that she is going into a block of uninterrupted training and that, unfortunately, she will not be in a position to come to Cork,” City Sports chief Dick Hodgins said.

“Obviously we are disappointed as she would be a big attraction at the meet but we will still have two very good long jump competitions.”

The women’s long jump includes one of Ireland’s outstanding young athletes, Kelly Proper, who was jumping close to Kluft when they crossed paths in Scotland recently, as well as some other big name internationals.

They include Tabia Charles (Canada), Theresa Dobija (Poland) and at least two Americans, Rose Richmond and Briana Glenn.

It was also confirmed that Patricia Soman Shunk from the Ivory Coast will compete in the long jump. Her husband, US high jumper Adam Shunk, was runner-up last year in Cork and competes again this year.

The field for the men’s high jump is headed by the 2004 Olympic bronze medallist, Jaroslav Baba (Czech Republic) who has since cleared 2.37m indoors and 2.36m outdoors.

He will be joined by another jumper with his sights on Beijing — Grzegorz Sposob (Poland), who has a best of 2.34.

Meanwhile, Paul Hession competes in Thessalonika tomorrow evening en route to Saturday’s showpiece in Cork, where he will compete in both the 100m and 200m. He set a new national 100m record in his first outdoor event of the season in Thessalonika last year.

And tomorrow night also, Albie Thomas, one of the legends of world distance running, returns to Morton Stadium where Clonliffe Harriers host a special reception with Ronnie Delany to mark the 50th anniversary of Thomas’ world three mile record (13:10.6) on the cinder track at Santry. He will jog a ceremonial lap of the track at 8pm.

After his world three-mile record in July 1958, Thomas returned to the stadium later that summer on August 7 and broke the world record for two miles (8:32).

The 50th anniversary of that remarkable summer at Santry will be commemorated by a new international athletics meeting at the stadium — the Brother Ireland Morton Memorial — which will take place on Friday, July 25. The meeting will serve as a send-off for Ireland’s Olympic team, led by hammer thrower Eileen O’Keeffe who will compete against world champion, Betty Heidler of Germany.