The winners of Sunday's National Championships are not available for the World Cross Country Championships, reports Ian O'Riordan
IRELAND MAY be without any representation at the World Cross Country Championships later this month for the first time in the history of the event. Only the senior men’s and women’s winners at Sunday’s National Championships in Santry gain automatic selection, but unusually, both of them have turned it down.
Keith Kelly (31) produced a sensational comeback from almost eight years of injury to claim the men’s title. Yet he was still carrying a knee injury into the race, and the priority now is to get that cleared up and refocus his effort on next season’s European Cross Country, which is set for the same course in Santry next December 13th.
“I would love to go, as any runner would,” said Kelly, who yesterday returned to his training base in Providence, Rhode Island.
“But my knee is still a bit of a problem. So it just doesn’t make sense. Everything now is about that European Cross Country in Dublin. That’s the sole reason I got back running in the first place. It would be amazing to be part of an Irish medal-winning team.
“I’ve only had about six weeks of proper training behind me, and I’ve still a lot of work to do. So I’ll take my time now and build up again.”
It doesn’t help that the World Cross Country is set for Amman, Jordan, on March 28th – which presents additional climatic and travel issues.
For Maria McCambridge, who won the senior women’s title in highly convincing style, the problem is she’s running the Paris Marathon just a week later, April 5th, in an effort to qualify for the World Athletics Championships in Berlin next August.
“I actually had a lot of problems getting into the right marathon,” she explained. I wanted to make sure I got it right, with the drinks, pacing, and that. It was only Jim Aughney (director of the Dublin marathon) who eventually sorted Paris for me.
“If I was able to get a later marathon, like say London, I would have considered the World Cross. But it just doesn’t suit. I really want to get under the 2:35 qualifying time for Berlin.”
Athletics Ireland have made qualification for Berlin that bit harder: while the IAAF standard is 2:43, they’ve set it at 2:35. Likewise, the men’s standard has been revised from 2:18 to 2:15.
Patsy McGonagle, high performance manager with Athletics Ireland, still hopes there can be some Irish representation in Amman: “It may only be a token representation,” he said.
“If Mary Cullen wants to be considered for the women’s race, for example, then she deserves to go. Likewise Mark Kenneally, runner-up to Keith Kelly. But we won’t be sending any junior athletes.”
The IAAF, meanwhile, have announced a new elite Grand Prix format, starting in 2010. The IAAF Diamond League, to replace the six-meeting Golden League, will consist of 12 meetings, and the full range of 32 events.
In each of those events, the athlete with the most points at the end of the series will be awarded a four-carat diamond (worth approximately €64,000). Each meeting will also have a prize fund of €330,000.
Diamond League
(from 2010)
London Grand Prix
British Grand Prix ;
Athletissima Lausanne
Bislett Games, Oslo
DN Galan, Stockholm
Herculis, Monaco
Meeting Paris St-Denis
Memorial van Damme, Brussels Prefontaine Classic, Eugene Grand Prix New York
China Golden Grand Prix Weltklasse, Zurich
