Irish athletes miss out on Olympic qualification

The rain fell relentlessly at the BUPA Ireland Cork City Sports at the Mardyke today and washed away the final opportunity for Irish athletes to qualify for the Olympic Games in Athens.

On a day when a number of home-based track competitors were desperately hoping for favourable conditions, they were, instead, forced to contend with inclement conditions which made what was always going to be a difficult task even more so.

That is not to say that there was no success for the Irish on the day, only that it came in events and from individuals whose immediate future were already decided either way and for whom there was not as much riding on their race as there was for others.

Sonia O'Sullivan, as expected, eased to victory in the 5000m in a time of 15:15.95 as she rounds off her preparations for Athens, where she will be looking to go one better than her silver medal at that distance in Sydney four years ago.

Highly promising high-jumper Adrian O'Dwyer booked his place on the plane to Greece when he jumped 2.30m to break the national record ten days ago but that did not stop the youngster from impressing his home crowd with a jump of 2.21m that was enough to earn him the gold medal from Russia's Pavel Formenko.

Another man making a lasting mark was Gary Ryan, whose wind-assisted run of 10.35 secs on his way to winning the Men's 100m equalled the national record set by Paul Brizzel last September.

Indeed, on a busy day for Ryan, the 33-year-old went agonisingly close to achieving the Olympic qualifying time for the 200m in running 20.78secs, a superb effort which fell less than .2sec below the required time.

Freda Davoren won the women's 1500m in a time of 4:13.43secs while Crusaders' Eoin Cummins took the honours in the Men's Developmental 800m.

Although the focus was on the Irish athletes on the day, the assorted fields comprised some 35 nationalities and they certainly made their presence felt in their respective events.

Australian Craig Mottram is considered to be a good bet for a medal in Athens and he showed why when pulling away from the chasing pack to win the 1500m in a time of 3:41.60.

Mottram's fellow countryman, Casey Vincent, secured another success for the Australians when he held off the challenge of Jimosola Laursen of Sweden and Ireland's Rob Daly to take the line in the 400m in a time of 46.67secs.

Makelesi Bulikioba of Fiji took the honours in the women's 400m while the Czech Republic's Adam Ptacek's clearance of 5.50m was good enough for gold in the Pole Vault event.