Costin could walk his way into something special

JAMIE COSTIN will get the Irish to the Olympic Stadium early this morning when he lines up for the 50k walk (8.05 am Irish time).

He may have been a long way from winning a medal but the young West Waterford man emerged as one of the heroes from the 50k walk at the Sydney Olympics when he made it to the line, dehydrated and clearly distressed, but got one of the biggest cheers when he declined any assistance and made his own way to the Mixed Zone. He spent some time afterwards on a drip but it was only after he had completed his assignment that he allowed the Olympic tattoo on his shoulder.

He has matured since then and his times have improved over all distances. In fact he also qualified alongside his training partner, Robert Kelleher, at 20k for those championships but opted for just the one race and comes with a personal best of 3:59:02 - a performance he could improve on here and with Irish race walkers on a roll right now he could do something special.

Robert Korzeniowski of Poland who reclaimed his world title in Edmonton last year could claim the title here although he faces the current European leader, Aleksey Voyevodin of Russia and the usual Spanish threat.

Derval O’Rourke faces the biggest assignment of her career to date when she goes in the first round heats of the women’s 100m hurdles this morning. She goes in the fourth of five heats - first two to qualify along with the six fastest losers - and faces a strong field that includes three women who have gone under 13 seconds this year: Olena Krasovska (Ukraine), Haydy Aron (France) and Irina Lenskiy (Israel).

Sprints coach Paddy Fay was happy with the draws for the heats of the men’s and women’s 200m which will also be decided this morning.

“Gary Ryan gets the best draw - lane 4 in heat 4 - but then doesn’t he always,” he said.”

Paul Brizzell and Paul Hession have outside lanes but that can often help. You run scared into the finishing straight and you run fast when you run scared.”

Marlon Devonish of great Britain is in the lane inside Brizzell in Heat 3 while the aging Troy Douglas, now running for Holland, is in Paul Hession’s heat 5.

Karen Shinkins, following the disappointment of yesterday’s 400m semi-finals when she failed to qualify, will not be in the women’s 200m.

Newly crowned national champion, Ciara Sheehy, a bronze medallist at under-23 level, gets lane 4 in the opening heat with Muriel Hurtis (France) who has a best of 22.51 inside her and Shani Anderson (Great Britain), who has a best of 22.96 in the lane outside her.