O’Rourke eyes home comforts
The former world indoor hurdles champion will be making her first competitive appearance in Cork since finishing fourth in the 100m hurdles at the world championships last year.
This year her hopes of reclaiming her world indoor title were scuppered when she picked up a hamstring injury on the eve of the world championships in Doha.
But she will be hoping to better her silver medal of four years ago in Gothenburg when she competes in the 100m hurdles at the European championships in Barcelona in the summer.
While the 100m hurdles were her priority all year, she was anxious to measure her improvement over 100m last season but she failed to get a race.
On Sunday she will line up against the reigning national champion, Ailis McSweeney, who is her training partner as well as clubmate. The Ferrybank pair, Niamh Whelan and long jump sensation, Kelly Proper, will also line up for the event.
The four of them will be involved in a training session for the sprint relay squad at the CIT track on Saturday. National indoor 60m champion, Claire Brady, will be missing as she is warm weather training in Portugal while Amy Foster is preparing for her bid for a place on the Commonwealth Games team.
The squad session for the relay teams will be conducted by sprints coach John Sheehan who was yesterday named Cork City Sports Athletics Person of the Month at the River Lee Hotel (formerly Jurys).
Hundreds of athletes from all over the country will be in action at the Leevale showpiece, with the juvenile programme getting underway at 11am.
The senior programme gets under way at 2.30pm and will feature many of the country’s top athletes. The men’s sprints will feature Dean Adams, another of Maeve Coyle’s athletes, who was runner-up to Paul Hession at the national indoor championships, international sprinter, Daragh Graham, and last year’s sensation, Stephen Colvert, who is aiming for a big season.
Seven Douglas Community School athletes and coach Steven Macklin will travel to Slovakia on Sunday to compete in the World Schools Cross-Country championships.
The event takes place every two years and this year it is being held in Liptovsky Mikulas in northern Slovakia next Wednesday.
There will be 30 countries competing for honours and the Douglas team will be seeking a top 10 finish in what is a highly competitive race held over 5,500m.
The Douglas team is comprised of Patrick Coleman, Cullen Lynch, Mark Seacy, Ian Tobin, Andrew O’ Keeffe, Jamie Sullivan (Captain) and Billy Murphy, all of whom live in the Douglas/Blackrock area and compete for Togher Athletic Club.
The team was chosen to represent Ireland at the world championships as a result of their All-Ireland Schools Cross-Country championship team win in March 2009 in Belfast and is very experienced having won national team titles in the past year with both Douglas CS and Togher AC.
Patrick Coleman, the most experienced member of the team, has represented Ireland on numerous occasions and was a very impressive winner of the All-Ireland U-18 Cross-Country title in the mud in Kilbeggan last November.
The team competed at the IAAF Cinque Mulini International Cross-Country event in Milan in January and won the team event, with Coleman finishing in fourth.
They are just back from a nine-day warm weather training camp in Monte Gordo, Portugal.
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