McDonagh’s form is back on track

CIARAN McDONAGH, who has been plagued by injury since he became the first Irishman to long jump over eight metres at the world championships in Seville in 1999, will be back in an Irish singlet at an International meet in Cardiff next weekend.

The Meathman, now 26, and approaching his prime, made history when he reached the final of the long jump in Seville but suffered a recurrence of the old injury that had his participation in doubt in the lead up to the world championships and could manage only one big jump.

He had gone in after jumping eight metres in the qualifying rounds to equal an earlier wind assisted effort.

Now he is about to re-launch his career. After the Cardiff meet he will compete in the National Indoor Championships at the Odyssey in Belfast the following weekend and will be hoping that a return to his old form will see him qualify for the world indoor championships in Birmingham a month later.

Sprinter Paul Brizzell continues to build on his outdoor form and last weekend he broke Gary Ryan’s old record with a run of 21.06 for 200m at the international in Birmingham.

Next weekend, however, he has requested selection at 60m - an event over which he is untested but the record, which stands at 6.78 is the only sprint record the Antrim man does not hold.

Leevale’s Derval O’Rourke, who ran 8.27 for the 60m Hurdles in Birmingham at the weekend will be hoping to achieve the qualifying standard for the world indoor championships and must be confident of doing it which requires an improvement of only 7/100th of a second.

Emily Maher has been out of the limelight for some time but she will attempt a sprint double while Maria Lynch and Niamh Beirne will be favourites in the middle distance events.

Back in the sprints, Robert Daly and David McCarthy, members of Ireland’s 4 x 400m relay team that made the finals of the European championships last year, will be hoping for success in the 300m and 400m, respectively.