No Roman holiday as ‘Golden’ hopeful Gillick bids to keep good run going

DAVID GILLICK, fresh from his record breaking run in Madrid last Saturday night, will feel at home among some of the greats of 400m running when he lines up at the Golden Gala in Rome tonight.

The race will feature three of the finalists in Beijing last year when the Irishman failed to get out of the first round. But things have changed since then and, after his 44.77 win in Madrid – his first time under 45 seconds – he goes into tonight’s race as the fastest man in the field this year.

He will line up along with the bronze medallist from last year’s Olympic Games, David Neville, who ran 44.80 secs for that medal before contributing a blistering 44.14 sec leg for the winning 4 x 400m relay team while Darold Williamson who ran 44.27 secs in 2005 was a member of the USA 4 x 400m relay team that won the gold medals at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens.

Ireland’s Olympic steeplechaser, Roisín McGettigan, will return to her favourite event this evening. Last weekend she had a disappointing run in the 1,500m at Cork City Sports.

Tonight’s women’s 3000 metres steeplechase will feature Gulnara Samitova Galkina (Russia), the Olympic champion and world record holder and the only woman able to break the nine-minute barrier.

The Bejing Olympic final was the stage for the lifetime feat less than one year ago when she won the Olympic gold medal and set the world record in one sensational race.

This was a unique achievement which only few athletes have managed to accomplish in the history of the Olympic Games. The Russian star ran 8:58.91 breaking an important barrier and confirming at the same time that she is the best specialist in the world.

McGettigan won her heat to get into that final but ran below par after she was bitten by a mosquito.

Galkina is already at the top of the world seasonal list with 9:13.70 and will be aiming to improve that in Rome tonight when she will face tough rivals in compatriot Yekaterina Volkova, second in the world all-time list, and three young African athletes who are at also close to the top of the world seasonal list – Kenyan Ruth Nyangau and Ethiopians Mekdes Bekele and Sofia Assefa. Romania’s Cristina Casandra and Italian Eolena Romagnolo are others likely to figure.