Stomach bug wrecks Loughnane’s medal challenge

HOPE turned to despair for Olive Loughnane in Barcelona yesterday when a stomach bug forced her to pull out of the women’s 20k walk after 5,000m and dashed her hopes of adding a European medal to the silver she won at the world championships in Berlin last year.

Loughnane shared the early pacemaking before world and Olympic champion, Olga Kaniskina, and Russian team-mate, Anisya Kirdyapkina, took control of the race.

The field begun to fragment at 5k point when Loughnane stopped and walked off the course where she was joined quickly by her husband, Martin Corkery, and her race walking team-mate, Robert Heffernan.