Cork ready to welcome Slovakia hero O’Brien

ALAN O’BRIEN (Crusaders) was relatively unknown when he won the IMC 800m at Cork City Sports last year.

When he lines up for the 1,500m at The Mardyke on Saturday week he will be assured of star status after his performance at the European Team Championships in Slovakia at the weekend.

A late replacement in the team, he out-kicked the field in the 1,500m to gain the maximum points that helped Ireland to promotion, for next year’s competition when they will be in against some of the strongest nations in Europe.

Yesterday, Dick Hodgins who is putting the fields together for the Mardyke showpiece – Ireland’s only major international athletics meeting – confirmed that O’Brien will be in the field for the 1,500m. The Dubliner will join previous winner David Campbell (St Coca’s), Kevin Moriarty and John Coughlan whose father, Eamonn, was once a regular among the stars at Cork City Sports.

There is a strong international flavour to this year’s 1,500m. Italian Mario Scapini was a European junior champion two years ago; Hungarian Barnabas Bene, was a European under-23 champion a couple of years ago and added the Hungarian half marathon title to his CV last year. Among the Americans will be Darren Brown whose father was a sub four miler and has run 3:58 for the mile himself. He joins Adam Perkins, 3:38.54 and Tommy Schmitz, 3:41.46.

Mark Hanrahan will carry the flag for Cork. The Leevale man has been on the brink of a breakthrough for some time and earned some valuable points for Ireland when he finished second on his debut at the European Team Championships at the weekend.

European indoor bronze medallist, Mary Cullen, will miss the women’s 1,500m. She is recuperating from injury but Olympic steeplechase finalist, Roisin McGettigan, will spearhead a strong Irish challenge that includes Roseanne Galligan and Sarah Treacy.

Benita Johnson from Australia, who has won the 3,000m on previous visits to The Mardyke, has opted for the shorter race and Turina Olesia from Russia, who won the race two years ago, is back again.

The favourite will be Sally Kipyego from Kenya, who ran the fastest women’s mile in the world this year at 4:29.64 in Toronto two weeks ago.

Paul Hession, who maintained his winning streak with another victory over 200m (20.56) in Slovakia at the weekend, will be back defending both sprint events. Earlier this month he won the 200m at the Super Grand Prix in Ostrava, 20.44, and finished third in a 100m race there and he also won the 200m at the European meeting in Bydgoszcz.

Jermaine McQueen from the USA, who has run 20.83, has also confirmed his participation in both sprints and Brendan Christian from Antigua and Mario Forsythe from Jamaica, who finished ahead of Paul Hession in the 100m in Ostrava, are also standing their ground.

Adrian O’Dwyer, the Irish record holder for the high jump, will make his return to competitive jumping at The Mardyke, it was confirmed over the weekend. The 2004 Olympian has been absent from the international scene since then but still has plenty of time to fulfil his potential. He will join the American high jumpers, Adam Shunk and Jamie Nieto, who set the meet record at 2.30m last year, as well as Martijn Nuijens from Holland who cleared 2.28m at the weekend, and up-and-coming Gormanston schoolboy, Kourish Foroughi, who set a new Irish schools record in Tullamore at the beginning of the month and competed in the European Team Championships over the weekend.