Davenport narrowly misses qualifying standard

MARIE DAVENPORT narrowly missed out on an Olympic A qualifying standard but smashed her personal best for 5000 metres in the United States at the weekend.

The Marian AC runner ran 15:09.07 to obliterate her previous best of 15:24.54 set last August at Santry as she claimed fourth place in a classy field at the second meet of the Boston High Performance series on Saturday night.

But while the first three home Americans Marla Runyan (14:59.03), Amy Rudolph (15:00.03) and Shalane Flanagan (15:05.08) all went under the Olympic A qualifying standard of 15:08.70, Davenport missed out by 0.37 of a second, although she was well inside the B standard of 15:20.45.

Also on the Olympic trail is Mark Carroll, who was scheduled to run last night in the 5000 metres at the Payton Jordan US Open at Stanford University in California, while Gareth Turnbull and Roisin McGettigan compete at the meet's 1500m events this evening.

There were Irish victories at the Boston meet, where Vinny Mulvey (13:58.26) won the men's 5000m and Orla O'Mahoney took the women's 1500m in 4:27.18.

Providence College's Róisín Quinn of Co Waterford, meanwhile, improved on her ninth place in last week's Boston High Performance women's 800m, when she clocked 2.16.0, by finishing seventh this week in 2:13.98. There was a setback for Irish international Alistair Cragg when he was forced to withdraw from the University of Arkansas team competing at the NCAA Mid-East Regionals in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

The All-American distance runner, who set a then-world's best time for the year of 13:16.98 in Stanford University, California, at the end of April, pulled out of Friday night's 5000m with cramp but will still compete at the NCAA Championships in Austin, Texas on June 9-12.

There was still Irish representation in the 5000m as Belfast's Thomas Frazer, representing Butler University, finished in second place to earn his ticket to the NCAA nationals. Frazer clocked 14:17.37 while Dubliner Wes Alkin was way below his best in finishing 15th for Eastern Michigan in 15:02.55.

Frazer's brother John, also at Butler, was eliminated from the 1500m at the preliminaries stage but another Belfast athlete, Erin Kinnear of South Alabama, jumped 3.76m in the women's pole vault final to finish 11th.

In the East Regionals in Gainesville, Florida, Mullingar's Martin Fagan earned Providence College and head coach Ray Treacy a point with his eighth place in the men's 5000m.

Fagan ran 14:27.28, beating Belfast's Joe McAlister of Iona (14:33.48) into ninth, while McAlister's teammate Sean Connolly of Tallaght did not finish the race.