Courageous performance by Carroll in 5,000m final

MARK CARROLL may not have won a medal but he won a lot of admiration with his courageous performance in the men’s 5,000m final in which Alberto Garcia claimed a seventh gold medal for Spain in a contest that had everything.

One can only speculate what would have happened if Mark Carroll had not gone out on the penultimate lap totally detached from the five-man group that took control of the race when the field split a kilometre from the finish. He ran 77 seconds faster than the five man group on this lap to close the gap and set off on the final laps just a few strides behind.

He ran up to join them with 300m remaining but the sprint for victory had already begun, the effort had taken it’s toll and, despite a 60 second final lap he had to settle for sixth place when the Dutchman, Kamiel Maase, edged clear again to claim fifth. The Corkman’s time was 13:42.87 but it did not reflect his amazing and at times startling contribution to the race.

He settled into the top half dozen as Sergiy Lebid (Ukraine) led them through the opening lap in 65.51 seconds and 800m in 2:17.39. Michael May (Germany), driven by the home crowd, put in a 68 second lap and suddenly Mark Carroll was 18th and not looking good.

Maase went to the front, the pace dropped and Carroll worked his way back up and into second position where he settled until the pack exploded again under a big effort from Erik Sjoqvist of Sweden who would pay the price later on.

The Irish 4 x 400m relay team finished off an exciting weekend when they finished fourth in yesterday’s final and, for the second time they ran under the old national record with a 3:04.13 run. On Saturday, they broke the record when they finished fourth in 3:03.73.