A dramatic Morton mile denies Torrance a trophy

The most dramatic Morton mile took place in front a large crowd at Santry Stadium, which included An Toaiseach Enda Kenny, just 2 days prior to the opening of the Olympic Games.

In a fascinating race which ended as a dust up between American’s David Torrance, Will Lear, Craig Miller and Australian Craig Miller. The four athletes came around the last bend en mass with a sprint finish to the line, where this reporter gave a falling Will Lear the Morton title.

The finish was too close to call and the officials required the photo finish, which gave the race to David Torrance.

An ecstatic Torrrance was presented with Morton Mile trophy only to have the result reversed some 30 minutes later, meaning Will Lear was awarded the title by a margin of 1 hundreth of a second in 3.56.39.

After the presentation, Lear (winner in 2010) said “I thought I got that, the moustache won it for me! I’ve been here before, it’s always a great race, but lacks in atmosphere sometimes, but tonight WOW!”

Australian Ryan Gregson took third place in 3.56.45 in a race which saw 10 of the 15 finishers dip under the magical four minutes.

Ciaran O’Lionaird finished outside the podium positions after phenomenal support by the large home town crowd, O’Lionaird clocked 3.57.02 for the evening effort, improving on his time in Cork last Tuesday of 3.58.84.

“I didn’t run a great tactical race, I got bunched up a bit on the back straight and it was gone.” O’Lionaird said afterwards.

When asked about his Achilles injury which threatened his Olympic games, O’Lionaird said “I can feel it now to be honest, its burning a bit, I’ll get a session in now and do a bit tomorrow before heading back to London”

It was a bitter sweet night for Kilkenny man Eoin Everard who missed out on a sub four minute mile by 66 hundredth’s of a second. Cork’s Mark Hanarahan also missed out clocking 4.01.17, while Paul Robinson Improved his mile PB clocking 3.58.47.

Elsewhere it was a successful night for Brian Gregan. Gregan took victory in the 400 meters in a time of 45.61 setting a new personal best, 2 hundreths of a second better than his best set in Helsinki a month ago.

Gregan brought the home town crowd to their feet with a classy victory taking control of the race after 200 meters dismissing Olympic bound Ahmed Al-Mirjabi and USA fancied 800 man Nick Symmonds.