Hendricken’s eyes on nothing but a finals berth

GERALDINE HENDRICKEN, Ireland’s athletic sensation of the season, will go into action this morning in the women’s 1,500m heats, which have an automatic place in Sunday’s final as the prize for the first three.

There they will be joined by the three fastest losers.

Yesterday, the 32-year-old Carlow athlete was not contemplating anything other than a berth in what promises to be an exciting final involving reigning world champion Gabriela Szabo.

Szabo opted for the 1,500m and deprived fans of another head-to-head with Ireland’s Sonia O’Sullivan in tomorrow’s 5,000m final.

For Hendricken, this will be the opportunity of a lifetime and a chance to atone for 1994 when she joined O’Sullivan and Providence College team-mate Anita Philpott in the 3,000m.

O’Sullivan went on to make history by becoming the first Irish woman to win a gold medal at a major track and field championship, with Philpott also making the final.

Hendricken’s hopes were dashed long before she set out for Helsinki, however. She had run nine minutes for 3,000m and 4:14 for 1,500m inside 48 hours in Montreal and came back full of ambition and hope.

But she fell ill and was a shadow of herself at the national championships.

“I had not recovered in time to be ready for the Europeans and I finished 13th in my heat and did not make the final,” Hendricken recalled.

“I was very disappointed with that and worried that people might look on me as a choker, which I am not,” she said.

On her return to Ireland, Hendricken completed her masters at Trinity College and now teaches, breeds sport horses, breaks them and sells them.

But she has always kept close to the top flight in athletics to be considered for international selection.

Yet it was not until this year that she blossomed at 1,500m, a distance she had not properly explored, although she was part of the Providence College team that once held the world record for the 4 x 1,500m relay.

“I always considered myself as a 3,000m runner,” said the seven time All-American.

“It was only this year that I began to concentrate on the 1,500m.”

She had a new best for 800m before a breakthrough in the 1,500m, becoming the second-fastest Irish woman, behind O’Sullivan, with a 4:03.18 run in the Golden League meeting in Monaco.

If Hendricken can reproduce that form here, she will go close to a medal on Sunday. She goes in Heat 2 this morning as the second-fastest athlete in the field behind Helen Pattinson, of Great Britain, who has a best time of 4:01.10. Suregya Ayhan, of Turkey, has a best of 4:03.02, while German Kathleen Friedrich, has a personal best of 4:04.00.

“I am in really good form right now,” Hendricken said, pointing out that she had recovered from a calf muscle injury that kept her out of the national championships.

“And running in the Golden League meetings has shown me that I can be right up there with the girls I have been watching on television.”

Maria Lynch, Ireland’s other representative in the women’s 1,500m, will join Szabo in the third heat. Szabo, who won the 1,500m but finished down the field in the 5,000m when she attempted to double up at the world championships last year, looks unbeatable going into this race.

She has a best of 3:56.97 from Monaco four years ago, a silver medal from the 1996 Olympics when she doubled up, and bronze from Sydney, where she won the 5,000m title.

Alesya Turova from Belarus, who leads the European rankings for the year with 4:01.01 from Monaco, is also in this heat, along with 1997 world champion Carla Sacramento, who has run 3:57.71, and Hayley Tullett, of Great Britain.

This the heat that could produce the fast times and Lynch, a brave runner, will almost certainly improve on the 4:10.65 that brought her here.

The Dubliner was a silver medallist at the European Youth Olympics in 1995 but her career has been punctuated by injury.

Peter Coghlan was impressive in winning his sixth national 110m hurdles title last month and looks to be approaching his best form. He will be fancied to qualify for tomorrow’s schedule when he goes in the fourth heat of the men’s 110m hurdles this morning.

National record-holder at 13.30, Coghlan ran 13.52 when he won in Lisbon in May. However, his object today will be qualification.

He will be joined in this morning’s heat by European leader Stanislavs Olijars, of Latvia, who ran a personal best of 13.15 in Pretoria last April.

Tony Jarrett is also in the field, and he goes in with the same seasonal best time as Coghlan, 13.52, from Birmingham a month ago.