O’Rourke overcomes injury hurdle to qualify for Madrid

DERVAL O’ROURKE ended an injury nightmare on Saturday with qualification for the European Indoor Championships in Madrid in March.

A second place finish (8.25 seconds) in the 60 metre hurdles at Loughborough marks the end of a troublesome 16 months of injury.

Since her heroics at the world indoor championships in Birmingham two years ago, the Cork girl has been troubled by ankle problem and ill health. After a difficult start to 2004 she appeared to be back on track, with a good performance at the BUPA Cork City Sports finalising her preparation for the Olympic Games. But she picked up a virus in Thessalonika which adversely affected her Athens performance.

“I took five weeks off after Athens - and the break did me a world of good. Things have turned around and now I have had a really good winter’s training,” she said.

“I wanted to get the qualifying standard for Madrid out of the way as quickly as possible so that is why I went to Loughborough. I have never opened the season this early,” she said. “So it was good from that point of view. It gives me time to prepare and we have a great group of sprinters training now.”

Next weekend O’Rourke will represent Ireland at the Cardiff International. She then competes in the Birmingham Games, the national championships in Nenagh and the AAA championships in Sheffield.

“Cardiff will be an important meeting because I understand Rachel King (AAA Champion) is competing there and she was just behind me on Saturday. And then we will have Rachel and Diane Allahgreen in Birmingham.”

Deirdre Ryan, who qualified for the European indoor championships with a national high jump record of 1.88m in Nenagh on Sunday, will also be in action in Cardiff.

So will Leevale sprinter Ailis McSweeney, though her hand-timed 7.3 seconds in the women’s 60m on Sunday will not be accepted as a standard for the Europeans. She will compete in the 60m in Cardiff and then make a dash to Glasgow for the Scottish championships where she is entered at both 60m and 200m.

Ciara Sheehy, who shared the spoils with her in the sprints at the AAI Games on Sunday, will compete in Glasgow but may just concentrate on the 200m.

The DCH athlete has her sights on the European indoor championship. Sheehy already has bronze medals from the European junior and U23 outdoor championships as well as a gold medal from the European Youth Olympics.

Emily Maher finished behind her in two of those finals and now trains with her. The Kilkenny athlete ran a personal best for 60 metres at 7.45 secs on her first race of the season on Saturday and will be named at 200m when the team for Cardiff is announced today.

Paul Brizzell will return to international competition in Cardiff as well when he lines up with Jer O’Donoghue in the 60m and high jumper, Adrian O’Dwyer, will also be making his reappearance following the Olympic Games.