McKee left with mixed feelings after 100m best

PAUL McKEE walked away from his seasonal debut in Cardiff at the weekend with mixed feelings after running a personal best for 100 metres and following up with a dismal run over 300m, the race he had targeted.

The Belfast athlete, bronze medallist at the world indoor championships in Paris last year, had not raced since being forced to cut short his indoor campaign with a recurring injury.

Then after seven weeks of solid training, he was looking forward to racing in Cardiff with his club Border Harriers, in a Division Two league meet.

“But the week before I got this virus or something and I had absolutely no energy,” he recalled. “I went anyway and, as it happened, I came off a poor start to win the 100m in a pb of 10.73.

“Before the race, I felt dreadful and that was just warming up and stretching. After the race, I was completely exhausted, which ruined the 300m for me,” McKee said.

Yesterday, he was feeling good again and looking forward to the end of the month when he will have back-to-back races at two meets in Hungary with the 4 x 400m squad getting ready for an Olympic qualification campaign.

Performance director, Elaine Fitzgerald, has a number of qualification opportunities lined up at meets in Poland on June 5, then Zaragoza in Spain on June 8 and Cuba.

“There could possibly be a few others as well and, of course, there is the Europa Cup in Iceland on June 19,” she said. She also has pencilled in the Dublin International and, of course, BUPA Cork City Sports on July 3, which is the deadline for qualification under the OCI regulations.

She was pleased with the news from Limerick where Tomas Coman continues to prepare for the outdoor season. “I spoke to his coach, Hayley Harrison, over the weekend and she said his last few sessions have been very positive so we are hoping to have him back competing soon,” she said.

Cork City Sports chairman, Dick Hodgins, said they would be looking forward to having Coman lining up with Rob Daly and David McCarthy for the 400m at their showpiece on July 3. “We will be bringing in some overseas athletes as well so it will be a very exciting race,” he said.

Paul McKee is hoping to get into the 200m at The Mardyke pointing out that he will be running a number of shorter distances but that will all depend on Olympic qualification.

Sonia O’Sullivan has given the BUPA Cork City Sports a big boost over the past week, running the fastest 5,000m in the world this year on what was a great night for Irish athletics in Stanford, setting a track record in the Commemorative Mile and then finishing second to Berhane Adere, the world 10,000m champion, in Balmoral on Saturday.

She confirmed afterwards that the 5,000m, her preferred event for the Olympics in Athens, will be her event at The Mardyke as well.