O'Rourke to miss Euro Indoors

Ireland's hurdling heroine Derval O'Rourke will sit out the European Indoor Championships in March due to a back injury.

The back complaint is set to keep O'Rourke, who won a gold medal at last year's World Indoors in Moscow, away from the European event in Birmingham - unless she and coach Jim Kilty have a big change of heart.

Currently warm-weather training in Spain, the Cork woman is more likely to give the indoors season a miss in favour of concentrating on her preparations for August's World Championships in Osaka, Japan.

The 25-year-old is ranked eighth in the world at present, with Germany's Kirsten Bolm and Swedish star Susanna Kallur the only Europeans ahead of her.

Meanwhile, Kerry's Gillian O'Sullivan, the former World silver medallist walker, will continue her comeback at Sunday's AAI Indoor Games in Nenagh.

The 30-year-old has been dogged by injury and illness for the past two seasons but showed decent form to win the 3000m walk at last week's Munster Indoor Championships, in a time of 13:00.79.