Davenport makes marathon debut

MARIE DAVENPORT will provide Irish interest in Sunday’s New York City Marathon when she makes her debut over the distance alongside world record holder Paula Radcliffe, and Sonia O’Sullivan’s Australian training partner, Benita Johnson.

Coached by Ray Treacy since her Providence College days, the marathon has always been a target.

However, her debut this weekend comes as something of a surprise considering her training all year has been geared towards the track and, more specifically, the Olympic Games.

Fourteenth place in the 10,000m final in Athens highlighted a memorable year. She set personal records indoors and outdoors from 1,500m (4:12) up to 10,000m. She ran 31:28 for her Olympic A standard in May and just missed out on the standard for 5,000m when she was only 0.03 outside the mark.

"I was delighted with the way the Olympics went. I was scared going in but I came out feeling very confident," she said. "It was always going to be a difficult race but I was ready for it this time and it went really well for me."

Davenport said Ray Treacy has been talking about a marathon for some time and when she set a course record for the half marathon in Boston last year 1:10:57 in dreadful weather it became an inevitability. The attempt to break that record this year fell way short of the mark to underscore the merit of her performance.

"Since 2002 things have been going really well. After the Olympics I ran a 5k in Providence and won in 15:19 so I knew things were going well," she said.

Under Ray Treacy she won an NCAA indoor title in 1996, was second in the NCAA cross-country in 1997 and had a whole string of second places, beginning as a sophomore when she was second both indoors and outdoors in the 5,000m. She also won the Big East twice.

The build up to the cross-country season and the European championships in particular gathers momentum this weekend. As part of the preparations Jim Davis, the National Endurance Coach, will take a number of athletes to the cross-country meeting in Ghent on Sunday. Maria McCambridge, who made her Olympic debut in Athens, will be joined by the former three time national junior champion, Finnoula Britton, in the women's race.

The team that many feel has the talent to be involved in the contest for the medals in Germany next month will take part in the junior men's race. Led by three time national junior champion, Mark Christie, the squad is completed by Andrew Ledwith, Danny Darcy, Joe Sweeney and Corkman Jamie McCarthy.