McKiernan defers comeback

Catherina McKiernan's return to competition after undergoing micro-surgery on her knee last December has been deferred for another month.

Originally scheduled to run in a 10-kilometres road race in Paris next Sunday, she will now make her comeback appearance in a half marathon in France on March 7th.

It indicates a difficult recuperation from an injury which was originally regarded as little more than an irritant, but has since occasioned a major revision of her programme.

Among other things, it forced McKiernan to miss scheduled races at Durham and Dunleer, but the more expensive legacy has been the loss of almost six weeks of quality training at a time when she had planned to do much of her heavy work.

Fortunately her level of fitness has now picked up again to the point where she is logging close to 100 miles in training each week. It remains to be seen, however, what effect the loss of those two races will have on the medium-term goal of a second consecutive win in the London marathon on April 20th.

On the way to her first London success McKiernan won a half marathon race at Lisbon. She now aspires to do the same in France and the preliminary indications are that it will be no less competitive.

Replicating her strategy of last year, she will leave for a spell of altitude training in Albuquerque immediately after that race and during her stay in New Mexico will run in a 10-kilometres event.

Brendan O'Reilly, the British international high jumper who has career best figures of 2.32 metres, has declared for Ireland. O'Reilly, a former BLOE champion, rejected a similar invitation at the start of his career and went on to represent Britain in major championships.

He now wishes to pursue an international career with Ireland and providing a clearance goes through, he could be in contention for a place in the squad for the world track and field championships at Seville in August.

Meanwhile Roseleen Campbell will lead a strong Finn Valley team to take part in the European Champions Cup at the Italian venue of Lanciano next Sunday.