O’Sullivan’s day of double celebration

IT WAS to be a day of celebration for Kerry’s Gillian O’Sullivan (Farranfore/Maine Valley) at the opening session of the indoor championships of Ireland.

Dame Mary Peters was on hand at the Odyssey Arena in Belfast to present her with the IAAF plaque to mark her world record for the 5,000m walk which she set at the nationals in Santry last summer.

But the celebrations took on a new dimension when she smashed the world record for indoor 3,000m with a sizzling walk of 11:35.53 that was all of five seconds faster than the old mark set by the Romanian, Claudia (Ivan) Stef, four years ago.

She is focused on the world championships in Paris next summer and will begin her build up to that assignment when she travels to Mexico for the opening Grand Prix race of the season on March 8. She will then remain on to train at altitude with some of the world’s top race walkers.

On what was a spectacular day for race-walking on the new state of the art track at the Odyssey Arena, Robert Heffernan (Togher AC) came back from injury to win a fifth successive national indoor 5,000m title in 19:16.95 after an enthralling struggle with his training partner, Jamie Costin (West Waterford), who eventually paid the price for taking on the Corkman when he was overtaken by Colin Griffin (Ballinamore) who finished second in 19:51.15.

With Darren Campbell and Mark Lewis Francis guesting there was always going to be a big interest in the men’s sprints and Dubliner Mark Howard got off to a flying start when he broke his own national indoor 60m record with a run of 6.71 secs in the first heat, and while he did not repeat in en route to the title, it qualified him for the world indoor championships.

Lewis Francis did not go in the 200m and Campbell withdrew from the final after having problems with the track in the semi-finals and there was further disappointment when national record holder Paul Brizzell withdrew. At the end of it all Gary Ryan (Nenagh Olympic) got a favoured lane 3 draw and he powered around the first bend to catch 400m record holder, Paul McKee, on the final bend, lead into the straight and hold him off to win by a fraction in 21.21 secs and post another championships best and claim his fifth national indoor 200m title.

With the world indoor championships in Birmingham in four weeks time the focus was on qualifying standards. Two athletes qualified from the women’s 3,000m won by Maria Lynch in a kick finish in 9:09.27 from her DSD clubmate, Maria McCambridge.

Geraldine Hendricken (SLOT, Carlow) has no interest in the world indoor championships preferring, instead, to concentrate on the short course cross-country trials which will be staged the same weekend at Dunleer. Should she change her mind, however, she has the standard from her gun to tape victory yesterday when she retained her 1,500m title in 4:12.50.

Ciara Sheehy (DCH), completed the double for a fifth successive time when she added the 200m title to her 60m title yesterday with a championship best time of 23.72 secs. Emily Maher (KCH) finished second in both finals.

Derval O’Rourke (UCD) had her qualifying standard from Cardiff a week earlier and she ran a very relaxed looking championships best time of 8.25 secs to win her fifth successive indoor 60m hurdles title.

David McCarthy (Celbridge) was just outside the qualifying standard for the world indoors when he won the 400m in 47.08 secs with Limerick man, Antoine Burke (DCH), powering his way to second place.