Olympic champ Phillips is the man to catch

OLYMPIC long jump champion, Dwight Phillips, was among the early arrivals as the stars for tomorrow’s BUPA Cork City Sports at The Mardyke began to assemble yesterday.

The American arrived in Cork via Amsterdam along with one of his main rivals in Saturday’s showpiece event, Victor Castillo from Venezuela.

Phillips is something of an all rounder, having some world class times up to 400m - 6.47 secs for 60m indoors, 10.11 for 100m, 20.68 for 200m and 46.80 for 400m - but the long jump has always been his forte and, as a 21 year old he was already jumping 7.26m leading up to the Athens Olympics which were his finest hour.

He took the gold medal in the final with his opening jump of 8.59m, and while this was a centimetre short of his best, he would have cleared 8.67m if his jump had been measured from take off to landing.

In Athens he was pressed by his compatriot, John Moffitt, whose best of 8.47m on his fifth attempt secured the silver medal with the ex-Cuban, Joan Lino Martinez, now competing for Spain, ending up third.

Fans will have a big Irish interest in tomorrow’s contest which will feature the long awaited return of Irish record holder, Ciaran McDonagh.

The Meathman has been out of the public eye since he became the first Irish jumper to clear eight metres at the world championships in Seville in 1999. Injury kept him out of the Olympics in Sydney and he did not regain his form in time for Athens.

Another long jumper of interest to local fans will be Darragh O’Farrell from Borrisokane as he looks to claim the Munster record.

The mark, 7.61m, was set by Waterford’s Peter O’Connor in 1901 and stood as a world record until the legendary Jesse Owens broke it. It was the Irish record until quite recently.

The fall-out from the withdrawal of double Olympic champion, Kelly Holmes, has resulted in no fewer than 18 new names being added to the programme.

“Once the news broke we immediately set about bringing in some of the other stars on our list and when we contacted 18 of them all 18 agreed to come,” City Sports Chairman, Dick Hodgins, said.

“We had not expected that kind of response and it now means that we are somewhat overwhelmed. Of those, seven or eight are of world class standard and they will add more depth to already competitive fields.”