Ireland a third-tier nation

ATHLETICS:IRISH ATHLETICS got a considerable reality check when the overall team standings from the weekend's European Cup were announced yesterday. The 43-year-old competition is being revamped next year as a men's and women's European Team Championship, and Ireland has found itself in the third division - albeit by just one place.

The team positions for the new format were based on the rankings of individual performances across last weekend's divisions, the scores for men and women being combined, and Ireland ended up ranked 25th of the 46 competing European nations, on 971.5 points.

This was just 2.5 points short of making the second division, into which Norway edged with a total of 974 points.

Next year's Team Championship will see men and women represented as one team. The top 12 teams in the rankings go into the main event, the second 12 into the "first league", and the next eight - including Ireland - into the "second league".

It's a disappointing scenario given Ireland had performed quite well at the weekend: the men taking third in their group in Tallinn, Estonia, and the women taking fourth in Leiria, Portugal.

But individual performances were crucial, and the Irish struggled in field events, especially on the women's side, where they were last in five of the eight events.

So instead of mixing it with some of the middle-ranked athletic nations such as Belgium, Finland, Romania and the Netherlands in the second division, Ireland's division three opponents next year will be Bulgaria, Croatia, Latvia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Austria and Cyprus. The only positive thing out of that is the potential for promotion.

There were only three individual Irish victories at the weekend: Paul Hession in the 100 metres, Paul McKee in the 400 metres and Eileen O'Keeffe in the hammer.

O'Keeffe was very much the exception in the field events, and Ireland's poor return clearly underlines the huge amount of work still required to bring Irish throwers and jumpers to a higher standard.

Ireland's overall tally was not helped by the fact Alistair Cragg had not made himself available, while Joanne Cuddihy had to withdraw from the individual 400 metres with a knee injury.

Although she did compete in the relay, Cuddihy will want to put that injury behind her as soon as possible as the Beijing Olympics loom ever nearer.