Sport

McKiernan boost

One of the major threats to Catherina McKiernan's hopes of winning the London Marathon on April 26th was removed yesterday with…

By PETER BYRNE
Sat Apr 11 1998 - 01:00

One of the major threats to Catherina McKiernan's hopes of winning the London Marathon on April 26th was removed yesterday with the withdrawal from the race of the world champion, Hiromi Suzuki of Japan.

Suzuki, an unexpected winner of the world title at Athens last August, had been training at altitude in New Mexico in the hope that she could shake off a persistent foot injury.

As it transpired, there was no significant improvement in her condition over the last month and on her departure from the United States yesterday, she announced that she was pulling out of the London race.

It's a major setback for the Japanese athlete, who was originally enthusiastic about her prospects of winning the event for the first time and in the process, collecting a £65,000 bonus for a new course record. She is now unlikely to run again until the autumn.

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McKiernan, another athlete who has included a programme of altitude training to prepare for the big London race, was upbeat about her form on her return to Dublin on Thursday.

She was back in training in the Phoenix Park yesterday, but plans to cut back on her homework in the approach to a race in which she will be seeking to extend her sequence of wins to 14.

With the defection of Suzuki, the principal challenges to McKiernan may now emanate from Kenya's Joyce Chepchumba, the winner of last year's race, and the two British athletes Liz McColgan and Marian Sutton.

A stinging attack on the Olympic Council of Ireland will be made by the BLE's national secretary, Liam Hennessy, in his report to the board's annual congress at Tralee on April 26th.

Hennessy will accuse the OCI of high-handedly dismissing the board's application for funding for warm-weather training, choosing instead to support named athletes, and criticises the organisation for its incorrect handling of a clothing dispute concerning Sonia O'Sullivan in Atlanta in 1996.

Hennessy writes: "The rules of competition for the Olympic Games state that the governing body for the sport, i.e., BLE, decides on the clothing to be worn by its athletes.