Derval bidding to get back on track
The Leevale star, former world indoor champion, sustained the injury while representing Ireland at the European team championships last month and had to revamp her programme.
She had been down to compete in the 100m hurdles in Zaragova, Spain, tomorrow night but travel difficulties forced her to switch to Heusden.
“Fortunately she had been originally entered for Heusden,” her coach, Sean Cahill, said. “The important thing is to get her back racing this weekend and she will have another race in Greece on Monday night.
“I am not expecting fireworks or anything like that on Saturday night. While she might not be happy with 13 seconds I certainly would because I know that she is capable of much better down the line. From my point of view the whole thing is to get her through the race safe and sound and then we will see what she can do in Greece.
“She competed over 100m at the Dublin Graded Meet last night and she won in 11.92 secs or something like that.
“While she was injured we were still able to get some work done by replicating situations in the gym and I think she has benefited from that. It is just a matter of getting back racing again. Despite the setback I am still convinced she is ready to run 12.7 secs – maybe not this weekend but she is certainly capable of running fast.”
David Gillick who recorded his second fastest time ever at 44.82 secs at the Golden League meeting on Rome last Friday night has skipped tonight’s Golden League meeting in Paris as he goes into a 10-day training block.
“It’s great for my confidence to be up there with those guys. It was a very good field – Olympic bronze medallist, Olympic finalists.
“I was out in Lane 7 as well which meant I was running blind for a lot of the time. Originally I had been in Lane 4 and Brown was in Lane 7 but we were switched late. But it’s nice to be able to run like that from an outside lane.”
“My next race will be in Monaco and then I could race in either London and Barcelona before the national championships.”
Ireland will be represented by Alistair Cragg in the 3,000m in Paris tonight. Two years ago he finished fourth (7:40.31) behind Moses Kipsiro (Kenya), 7:39.02, and Joseph Ebuya, 7:39.53, with Boniface Songok third, 7:40.21.
Meanwhile, Tim Harrington (Kinsale CS), the Irish schools senior triple jump champion, has won the Cork City Sports Athletic Person of the month award.
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