Ó Lionaird gets funding boost

CIARAN Ó LIONAIRD can’t wait to get his preparations for next year’s Olympic Games underway and, after his Daegu odyssey, he can plan for the future with world-class funding from the Irish Sports Council.

Finbarr Kirwan, the ISC director of high performance, was very impressed by his fellow Corkman’s performances in Korea, where he ran 3:36.96 in the semi-finals of the 1500m and then 3:37.81 for 10th place in Saturday’s final.

He had not run under 3:40 until the beginning of last month when he posted 3:34.46 in Belgium to reach the ‘A’ standard for London 2012 and spring from obscurity to fourth place on the Irish all-time list.