Irish team confident

After sweeping the middle distance events at the Scottish indoor championships last weekend, the best of the Irish move on to the British AAA's which start in Birmingham tomorrow. James Nolan is once again stepping up a distance, to 1500 metres, and after an impressive victory in Glasgow, the UCD man will be looking for another medal-winning performance. Gareth Turnbull, who demolished the field in the 3000 metres last week, has also entered the metric mile and in his current form is likely to put up a similar challenge to Nolan.

The 800 metres last weekend presented few problems to James McIlroy although his next race won't be until the National Championships in Nenagh in two weeks' time, where he's expected to run the 400 metres. David Matthews finished a close second to McIlroy in Glasgow and has set his sights on going one better in this outing.

Karen Shinkins missed the Scottish 400 metres gold by just 0.04 of a second and, by her own admission, ran a tactically poor race. Shinkins set the national indoor record of 53.45 seconds last year and that's now her target in the build-up to the world indoor championships in Maebashi next March.