Athens boost for Carroll in 5,000m
Alistair Cragg, who has qualified for the 5,000m at the Olympic Games with Mark Carroll and Cathal Lombard, made an impressive Irish debut in the 1,500m, but the sensation of the race was schools champion, Colin Costello. A double silver medallist at the European Youth Olympics, he battled it out with Cragg before finishing second in a new career best time of 3:45.34. Cragg, pleased with his performance, won in 3:44.37.
Carroll reclaimed the 5,000m title in 13:51.67 and he then lined up for his first 1,500m race since he brought off a 5,000m/1,500m double at national championships two years ago.
He did not win this time but he came from a long way back to snatch third place and described it as a nice blow out.
On a weekend when the focus was on the Olympic hopefuls, the non-qualifiers claimed much of the spotlight. Young Paul Hession, who missed out by a mere two hundredths of a second, beat Athens-bound Paul Brizzel to win the men’s 200m.
To highlight his case for another extension of the Olympic deadline, the 21-year-old Athenry sprinter’s winning time of 21.43 secs was superb.
But the most frustrated athlete was high hurdler, Peter Coghlan, who won his eighth national senior title and, despite the headwind, was once again under the B standard with a winning time of 13.80 secs.
Karen Shinkins also won her eighth 400m title and she too was once again under the B standard. Like Peter Coghlan, she insisted that given the windy conditions this was probably her best race of the season with a time of 53.02 after a 52.91 semi-final.
Tomás Coman created something of a sensation when he came off a long and frustrating period of injury to reclaim the 400m title in 45.91 secs - the fastest time by an Irishman this year.
The Tipperary man fought out a spectacular contest with Rob Daly to take the title he last won four years ago, with Daly second in 45.98 secs and his DSD clubmate, David Gillic, third in 46.27.
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