IRELAND will field a weakened team in the Distance Medley Relay tomorrow at the Penn Relays in Philadelphia.
The event is generally one of the highlights of the three-day meeting and although it is billed as the USA versus the World, it will include teams from a host of countries. Ireland are without World 1500m finalist Ciarán Ó'Lionaird as well as Letterkenny's Mark English, who was ranked in top 30 800m runners in the world last year.
Nevertheless, Brian Gregan, Paul Robinson, John Travers and John Coghlan will no doubt acquit themselves well. Gregan and Robinson were members of the 2013 Irish team that competed in the same event and finished an excellent fifth in a national record time of 9:24.10.
Robinson continued his impressive start to the season last weekend with a second-place finish at the BAA Invitational Mile in Boston. He was up against a top-class field and found New Zealand's former Commonwealth 1500m champion Nick Willis too fast for him on the long homestraight.
He did, however, relegate current Olympic 1500m silver medallist Leo Manzano, from the USA, into third place.
Gregan was also in action last weekend, finishing seventh in the 200m at the Mt Sac Relays in California.