Athletics: Once again growing in prestige, the Dublin City Marathon, which begins at 8.30 on Monday morning, looks to a handful of Irish runners to face the formidable Kenyan assault.
World class John Mutai, who won last year, Wilson Cheruiyot and Erick Kiplagat look like the fancied visitors with Ireland's Jamie Lewis providing the most realistic home challenge.
Lewis made his Dublin debut last year in a time of 2:19.58, finishing fourth. Running in London last April, he knocked more than four minutes off his personal best, making him the fastest Irishman this year over the distance.
Mutai defends his title in the knowledge that if Lewis runs his best, he can come home faster than last year's winning time of 2:15.18. But the Kenyan also has a 2:13.20 in his legs, which was the time it took him to come second last January in the Dubai Marathon. Penuel Ondoro, the fourth Kenyan runner also ran 2:13 in San Sebastian last November.
Belfast's Teresa Duffy is a strong candidate in the women's event. A winner in Dublin in 1998, she also won the Ballycotton 10km in March before running 2:38.30 in London last April.
The race begins outside the Four Courts and finishes in Smithfield Plaza. The first disabled athletes are off at 8.20 a.m. with the main body of runners leaving at 8.30 a.m. The first male will arrive back at approximately 10.45 a.m. and the first female 11.10 a.m. The last entrant home will arrive at around 5.00 p.m.
Equestrian Sport: Ireland's pony show jumpers got off to a good start at the big French international in Le Touquet yesterday, when Ballina teenager Audrey Duffy and Oyster Breeze scored in the opening speed class.
Duffy, drawn second to go, set an unbeatable target to score from the front, with fellow Irish team-mate Caoimh Ruigrok ninth on Expressions.
Golf: The two-man Irish team of Noel Fox and Michael Hoey jumped into a four-stroke lead after the first round of the International Trophy competition in Argentina yesterday. Fox, the current Irish strokeplay champion, fired a best of the day four-under-par 68, while Hoey shot 69 for a total of 137 which put them clear of England's Gary Wolstenholme and Nick Dougherty.
Motor Sport: Niall Maguire has withdrawn from tomorrow's Marine Hotel Fastnet Rally due to the death of his uncle. In the absence of the championship leader and reigning champion, Paul Harris is virtually assured of winning the Dunlop National Rally Championship, but he must finish this final round.
Harris, who conveyed his condolences to Maguire, also has the added pressure of running first on the stages as the number one-seeded Donal O'Donovan has also withdrawn as his Toyota Celica will not be ready in time. In the re-seeded top 10, Tommy Graham (Ford Escort Cosworth) and Wesley Patterson (Sierra Cosworth) will start with Numbers 9 and 10, respectively. The one-day event starts tomorrow from Skibbereen at 10 a.m.
Cycling: French cycling star Richard Virenque, who admitted for the first time in midweek that he had taken banned drugs to improve his performances, said yesterday he was glad to have got the confession off his chest.
"I'm glad I spoke up," said Virenque, whose confession in a French court on Tuesday stunned the cycling world. "People understand things better now," he told reporters as he explained why he had dropped previous claims of innocence going all the way back to the drug-ravaged 1998 Tour de France.
But he admitted that finally speaking out in the courtroom after all this time had been a "difficult experience."
The trial is expected to last until November 10th.
Cricket: Pakistan exposed England's lack of consistency to level the one-day series and provided ominous signs for the forthcoming Test series over the next six weeks.
Their eight-wicket victory with 5.4 overs remaining of yesterday's one-day international at the Colonel Gaddafi stadium set up a decider in Rawalpindi on Monday and also underlined the huge advantage Pakistan enjoy over them when the two sides return here for the opening Test on November 15th.
Scoreboard in SPORTS ROUND-UP
Baseball: The Subway Series is over and the New York Yankees, the greatest dynasty in United States sporting history, are Major League Baseball champions for a record 26th time.
The Yankees won their third consecutive World Series title and fourth in five years after beating the New York Mets 4-2 to capture the 96th fall classic four games to one. No club had won three crowns in a row since Oakland in 1974.
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