Catherina McKiernan will put victory before records when the biggest test of her embryonic marathon career, brings her on course for a meeting with some of the world's leading road runners in London next Sunday.

In keeping with the format of recent London marathons, the sponsors, Flora, are offering a bonus of $100,000 for a world record in either the men's or women's races.

It is an attractive prize to set alongside the other financial inducements in what is generally regarded as one of the most lucrative events on the road racing calendar but it will not be a prime consideration for the Irish runner.

McKiernan, due in London today for the first of the celebrity interviews which traditionally precede the race, said that her top priority will be to cross the line first. It doesn't necessarily, mean that she is discounting the possibility of a record but as the least experienced of the elite athletes in terms of marathon running, she is not being overly ambitious.

Since returning from altitude training in New Mexico, she has been engaged in polishing her preparations and last Sunday morning, expressed satisfaction after running a time trial on the Cavan-Virginia road.

She travels to England this morning and is scheduled to return later in the day. She will then have a couple of days light work in Dublin before going back to London on Saturday.

Nick Davis will be elected unopposed to the presidency of the BLE, in succession to Michael McKeon, during the board's annual congress in Tralee next weekend. It will be a popular appointment of a man who, as athlete and administrator, has given the sport admirable service.

There will be a straight contest between Liam Hennessy, the outgoing national secretary, and Paul O'Connor of Limerick, for the post of vice-president and the five contenders for Hennessy's old position are Dave Evans, Andy Hallissey, Anthony Kelly, Dermot Nagle and Brian Tremble.

Chris Wall who is set to serve another term as international secretary, calls in his report, for the annual general meeting of the Olympic Council of Ireland to be restructured. He says that in its present format, it is not possible for constituent members to influence the strategic planning of the organisation.

He also refers for the second consecutive year, to the growing and, in his opinion, detrimental influence of professional agents in the sport.

"The vast amount of money being generated by the sport, mainly finds its way into the bank balances of athletes and their agents with national federations left to seek funding from governments," he states. "The IAAF must develop practices and procedures for controlling agents and promoters in order to ensure that the monies being generated by athletics, are used, in part, to maintain and improve the structure of the sport.

"It is neither fair nor equitable that a sport so dependant on volunteers for its administrative structure and on taxpayers' money for its financial survival, should be hijacked by a minority whose only goal is to take out as much money as they can, for the smallest effort possible".

Deprecating the IAAF's decision to introduce a world short course cross country championship, he is much more enthusiastic about the imminent introduction of world under-17 championships.

Welcoming it as a positive development, he states that BLE has applied to stage the inaugural event in Dublin in 1999.