Costello to take up scholarship at Arkansas

IRISH Junior 1500 metres record holder Colin Costello is to take up a scholarship at University of Arkansas, the number-one ranked US track and field college.

The rising middle distance star, an Irish Examiner Junior sports star for 2004, will team up with head coach John McDonnell, the Mayoman who guided Alistair Cragg to seven NCAA titles and most recently to European Indoor gold.

Costello, 18, from Julianstown, Co. Meath, will join a track and field programme which has notched up 40 US collegiate titles under McDonnell’s 30-year stewardship and nurtured the talents of Irish Olympians Niall O’Shaughnessy, Paul Donovan, Frank O’Mara and Niall Bruton, as well as Cragg.