Ankrom: Ireland facing Euro dogfight

Athletics Ireland High Performance Director Kevin Ankrom admitted Ireland will be fighting for survival at the European Team Championships first league in Morton Stadium on June 22/23 on the announcement of the team yesterday.

Ankrom said the team was weak but is still “super excited” about the competition.

“We’re not the strongest but there are other teams that are going to be hurting too,” said Ankrom of the event that consists of every track and field discipline and will see Ireland compete against Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and Switzerland.

Derval O’Rourke (100m Hurdles), Fionnuala Britton (5,000m) and Brian Gregan (400m) will be competing while Laura Crowe in the 3,000m is on the cusp of an international breakthrough.

This will be Crowe’s first senior international vest and she is competing at the ExxonMobil Bislett Games in the Oslo Diamond League in the 800m today. She believes it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.

“When I got the message through that I was in Oslo I didn’t believe it,” said Crowe. “It was unreal. This is a once in a lifetime chance.”

The chance came to fruition through Sonia O’Sullivan after the prospect of a women’s 4x800m relay team fell through at the Penn Relays in April. Sonia’s husband Nic Bideau, a leading athletics agent, got her the chance to compete in one of the most historic meets on the Track and Field calendar.

“The door was shut but a new one has opened,” she said of the Penn Relays. Crowe has been in top form winning the 1500m at the British Milers Club in Manchester in 4:12.25 and was delighted with her call-up. It’s been a great couple of weeks,” said Crowe. “I’m stepping up in distance in the 3,000m for the Europeans but I’ve run some 5k road races and I’m in good shape.”

Kevin Ankrom echoed Crowe’s excitement but when questioned on whether the team is good enough to stay up, he was more reflective.

“It’s going to be tough. Ideally there would be more distance events but we have an opportunity to expose our athletes to a high calibre international competition on our own home soil and we will take full advantage of this opportunity.”

The target for Ankrom is to stay up and potentially finish in the middle of the table.