ATHLETICS Ireland looks as though it will send its largest ever team to the European Athletics Championships in Rome which start in less than two weeks (June 7-12).
Already 21 individuals have achieved automatic qualifying standards while possibly another dozen may gain entry through the points system. The mad scramble for automatic qualifying marks concludes this weekend with the deadline being Sunday.
Tyrone teenager Nick Griggs can relax now, being one of the latest to book his ticket to Rome when he ran 3:36.90 for 1500m in Poland last weekend. The Candour Track Club runner was exactly a tenth of a second inside the required time and finished fifth in a race won by Filip Rak who set a Polish U23 record of 3:33.74.
Griggs and Ciara Mageean, who has the standard in both the 800m and 1500m, are the only Northern Ireland athletes assured of selection at this time. But it is a bit worrying that the Portaferry woman, fourth in the 1500m at the World Championships last year, has yet to dip her toes in the competitive pool this year.
Efrem Gidey also attained his standard last weekend when the Clonliffe Harrier finished seventh in the international section of the Night of 10,000m Races at Highgate in London. He missed Alistair Cragg’s national record by just half a second with a 27:40.04 posting and joins four other Irish men in the event with only a maximum of three permitted on the start line in Rome. It is likely Andrew Coscoran will concentrate on his speciality, the 1500m, making the task of the selectors that much easier.
Similarly, Rhasidat Adeleke, with 200m and 400m times, may opt for the shorter distance, saving some of her energies possibly for both the 4 x 400m and mixed relays. Adeleke was fourth at that distance in Los Angeles last weekend, a timely reminder perhaps that a medal in the Paris Olympics later in the year is not a foregone conclusion.
Ireland’s European Qualifiers
Women
200m – Rhasidat Adeleke; 400m – Adeleke, Sophie Becker, Sharlene Mawdsley; 800m – Ciara Mageean; 1500m – Mageean, Sarah Healy, Sophie O’Sullivan; 100mH – Sarah Lavin; 3000mS/C – Michelle Finn; Half Marathon – Fionnuala McCormack; 10,000mW – Anika Thompson.
Men
800m – Mark English, 1500m, Andrew Coscoran, Luke McCann, Nick Griggs; 5000m – Coscoran, Brian Fay; 10,000m – Coscoran, Fay, Efrem Gidey, Peter Lynch, Cormac Dalton, Barry Keane; 400mH – Thomas Barr; Shot: Eric Favors.
Meanwhile the north west is to lose one of its classic races with next Wednesday’s (May 29) Furey Insurances Buncrana 5K being its final edition. It is the latest in a long list of road races in the north that have disappeared for various reasons - Covid, rising costs and not least the introduction of road management legislation.
The Buncrana 5k catered for a particular market because it was the second fastest course of that distance in Ireland, behind Armagh, and its organisers were from Donegal but members of a Derry club which allowed them to tap into and promote cross border and cross community racing. They did this with great enthusiasm and it became a bit of an annual spectacle on the race calendar, with spectators travelling to watch brilliant races with a local flavour.
The all-comers course record belongs to Kenya’s Dan Tanui who ran 13mins 57secs in 2016. The fastest home runner is Spartan Declan Reed who clocked 14m 30.8s in 2019 but possibly the most impressive record of all belongs to Athens Olympian Maria McCambridge at 16m 07s in 2010. The record number of finishers is 380 on a night when Sean Doherty (now Fr Doherty) announced on Highland Radio that he was coming down to run. This brought out a huge crowd to see how the ‘voice’ of Highland Radio would perform on the night!
Entry for the final Buncrana 5K is still open at https://www.njuko.net/furey_ins_5k_2024/select_competition
WEEKEND FIXTURES
Saturday
10:00am - Ballyclare May Fair 5K & 10K - Ballyclare Rugby Club - Chris Dickey (07860712163)
11:00am - Almac 5K & 10K - Craigavon Lakes 11am -orla.tumelty@almacgroup.com
11:00am - Pat Dunbar Memorial Mountain Race - Leitrim Lodge - Paul Le Blanc (07871775633)
TBC – ANI Team Trophy – Mary Peters Track
TBC – Track & Field Live – Finn Valley Centre, Stranorlar
Sunday
10:00am - Marconi 5 Mile Run - Ballycastle Tennis Courts - globalgenes@btinternet.com
10:30am - Newall 5K & 10K - Main Street, Coalisland - Sean Boyle (02887741818)