Heartbreak for Olympic hopeful

Athletics News: As seemed inevitable, an Irish athlete, Maria McCambridge, has run the qualifying time for Athens after the deadline imposed by the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI).

McCambridge ran a fine 15 minutes 5.86 seconds for 5,000 metres at the Heusden meeting in Belgium on Saturday night. However, OCI president Pat Hickey last night made it categorically clear that there would be no further additions to the Irish team and that their deadline, which has now passed, is standing firm.

Her time was well inside the 15:08.70 A standard for Athens, and also made her the third-fastest Irishwoman over the distance. Under IAAF guidelines athletes have until August 9th to secure qualifying standards for Athens, but the OCI set their deadline as July 20th, extending it from their original cut-off date of July 3rd.

And yet McCambridge can feel particularly hard done by if she misses out. Her 15:05.86 was a 13-second improvement on her previous best and came when she finished third in a high-quality race that included several leading Africans.

The Dundrum South Dublin runner had also paid her own way to Belgium, revealing afterwards: "This was the first opportunity I had of getting a good race over this distance," she said, "and I had been aiming for it for the last couple of weeks. I also had great traffic problems during the race because they allowed 30 runners and I spent a number of laps having to run wide and then three of us broke away and I felt very strong in the end and absolutely thrilled to run this fast."

She ended up just five-tenths of a second behind the winner, Docus Inzikuru of Uganda, with a further 11 African runners behind her, five Kenyans four Ethiopians, a Moroccan and an Algerian.

Yesterday Athletics Ireland spokesman Pierce O'Callaghan said special representation would be made to the OCI to have McCambridge added to the Irish team. "Everyone is aware of the fact that under IAAF rules an athlete has until August 9th to qualify and on that basis we will be making official representation to the Olympic Council on behalf of Maria McCambridge," he said. But in light of Hickey's comments it is now certain that McCambridge will suffer the heartbreak of not fulfilling her Olympic ambition.

McCambridge also missed going to Sydney in 2000 after she beat the A standard by 17 seconds - with 15:18.78. But three other Irishwomen had ran faster that summer. Earlier this year she qualified for the final of the 3,000 metres at the World Indoor Championships, finishing ninth overall.

Elsewhere, James Nolan clocked his fastest 1,500 metres of the year in Heusden, posting 3:37.85, yet that was only good enough for 14th and last place. It was a clear indication of the challenge Nolan faces in Athens, the first 10 runners clocking 3:34.71 or better, led over the line by Morocco's world record holder Hicham El Guerrouj, who clocked 3:29.18.

Roisín McGettigan from the Slí Cualann club in Wicklow knocked five seconds off her Irish record for the 3,000-metre steeplechase when finishing fourth in Heusden with a time of 9:45.60, while Peter Coghlan, chasing the 13.55 A standard in the 110-metre hurdles, could only take fourth in 13.76.

Rob Daly took sixth over 400 metres in 46.57, and Eugene O'Neill of Crusaders ran a lifetime best of 8:47.12 in the steeplechase.