ANNADALE Strider Ed McGinley and North Down's Peter Glass provided the top local performances of last weekend. McGinley (pictured left) finished fourth in the 10,000m at the Sainsbury British Championships in Birmingham with a time of 29 minutes and 32.51 seconds which took over 15 seconds off his best. "I was delighted to get a personal best," said McGinley. "It was refreshing to be in a real race again after the usual paced events all season."
Even if McGinley had got third place, there would have been no medal for him despite being born and bred in Northern Ireland. The organisers rule that he is a 'foreign' athlete and not eligible for the awards even though he has a British passport and represented Ireland in a race in Louth. Derry man Conor Bradley had a similar experience last year when he was refused entry to the UK Olympic trials. Bradley is also NI-born and, unlike McGinley, has never represented Ireland at any level, but does not have a British passport and was deemed to fall into the 'foreign' category.
Peter Glass became the fifth NI athlete to achieve a consideration standard for next year's Commonwealth Games when he won the Scottish Decathlon title in Grangemouth with a personal best score of 7,510 points.