O'Rourke pulls out of Irish Championships

World Indoors hurdles champion Derval O’Rourke has pulled out of the Woodie’s DIY Irish Indoor Athletic Championships at the Odyssey Arena Belfast this weekend.

Ms O'Rourke explained that she had picked up a foot injury a few days ago.

She then saw her physio Ger Hartman who strongly advised against placing the foot under any significant pressure for at least two weeks.

O’Rourke was to have raced British UK Indoors record holder Sarah Claxton and former European Indoors Silver medallist Jenny Kallur of Sweden.

However, the organisers have also announced that the current Olympic long jump silver medallist from Athens will be competing. John Moffitt of the US snatched the silver medal with a spectacular PB jump of 8.47m behind team-mate winner Dwight Phillips. Moffitt recorded a world top 20 leap of 8.19m in Sardinia.

The women’s high jump includes Deidre Ryan who set a new national record of 1.92m when winning the AAA’s title in 2006. She faces the former European Junior silver medallist Julian Hartmann of Germany who jumped 1.93m last March in Birmingham.

Finally, Northern Ireland 800m record holder James McIllroy will compete over 1500m and Gareth Turnbull will take the 3000m start line.