Carroll to focus on European championships after Tyson test

Brendan Mooney

Alistair Cragg, who spent his collegiate career at Arkansas, will be competing on home ground and it will be the first time the pair have lined up together indoors.

They are the top two 3,000m indoor runners in Europe. Cragg shot to the top of the world rankings when he beat Kenenisa Bekele at the Reebok Boston Indoor Games in 7:39.89 two weeks ago. The previous night, at the Boston Invitational Meet, Carroll beat the US No 1, Alan Webb, in 7:46.60.

Then when he won the mile at another meet in Boston last weekend, the 33-year-old Corkman, who won the European indoor 3,000m title in Ghent in 2000, was beaming.

“If Alistair and myself line up for the final in Madrid we could do a lot of damage,” he said.

“After winning in Ghent anything short of a medal would be a disappointment. I have been doing endurance training for the marathon. I had planned a spring marathon and targeted Boston but I have scrapped that idea now.”

He leaves for Florida on Sunday for warm weather training and speed work, which should leave him in good shape for Madrid, where the Irish team could number as many as 14.

Most of those will be in action at the AAA indoor championships in Sheffield this weekend, including Leevale sprinter Jer O’Donoghue, who again failed narrowly in his quest for a qualifying standard with two 6.81 sec 60m runs in Genoa on Wednesday.

He will be joined by Emily Maher, who is close to the women’s qualifying standard at 60m and James Nolan, a silver medallist in the 1,500m in Ghent in 2000 and chasing a standard.

Paul Hession (200m), Ailis McSweeney (60m), Derval O’Rourke (60m hurdles), Deirdre Ryan (high jump) and 400m runners David Gillick, Rob Daly and David McCarthy will all be using the Sheffield meet to prepare for the Europeans.

There is an interesting entry in the women’s 800m, where former 400m runner Martina McCarthy will have another go. She became Ireland’s youngest Olympian when she went to Sydney with the 400m relay squad but has been hit by injury since.

She lined up for an 800m debut at the national indoor championships last weekend and tracked the talented Aoife Byrne all the way to the line.

David McCarthy, who outsprinted Ciaran Ó Lionaird to win the senior 1,500m title in Nenagh on Sunday, will be back in action for his school, St Augustine’s, Dungarvan, when they defend their intermediate team title at the Kit Kat Munster Schools cross-country championships in the college grounds tomorrow (12.30pm).

There has been little between McCarthy and Ó Lionaird and when Brian Markham from Ennis is included, you have possibly the best trio of Irish schoolboy middle distance runners in the country.

Ó Lionaird, who is focused on the track since running his 3:50.82 1,500m, will be missing from the line-up on Saturday but some exciting competition can be expected.