Power primed for big push

Seamus Power will lack nothing in motivation when he takes his place on the start-line tomorrow for his biggest test of the season to date - the European Cross Country Championships in Valenje, Slovenia.

It was in the corresponding race last season that Power's plans began to deviate off course and plunge him into the biggest crisis of his career.

That was a product in the first instance, of a disastrous introduction to marathon running in Dublin seven weeks earlier. The ordeal drained him so much that for the remainder of the season the Clare man, invincible in domestic competition for so long, struggled to make an impact.

Now, finally, his rehabilitation is close to completion and, after out-running a talented field to win the national inter-county championship for a fifth consecutive year in Cork last month, he believes he is primed for a big performance on a course likely to be covered with snow.

"This year's inter-county championship was probably the best of recent years and, having survived a bad patch to come good over the last 1,500 metres, I think I'm in shape for a good run in Slovenia," he said.

The European race offers the opportunity of championship fulfilment to those who, on bigger occasions, are merely making up the numbers. Yet, despite the drop in the levels of competition, Power may still be doing well to command a place in the top 10. Martin McCarthy and Peter Matthews ran well enough to push the champion to his best performance for quite some time at Carrignavar and, judged on that performance, will have justifiable hope of finishing closer to the front of the field than the back.

There is, too, the possibility of the talented Co Antrim trio of Gareth Turnbull, Dermot Donnelly and John Ferrin leaving an imprint on the race. Ferrin, who profited from Power's absence to win the individual title in the national inter-club championship last February is, on the evidence of his Cork run, getting appreciably closer to the form which brought him victory at Ballybofey.

Donnelly, so often his conqueror in Ulster, is also capable of a big run. But it is the immensely talented Turnbull who holds the brightest chance of all. Strong and durable and yet sufficiently sharp to win the national 800 metres championship at Santry in the summer, he has the type of rounded talent which can never be lightly discounted.

In the absence of Sonia O'Sullivan and Catherina McKiernan, it falls to Rosemary Ryan, back in Ireland after spending almost four years at the University of Boston, to spearhead the Irish challenge in the women's race.

After a convincing run in the Loughrea road race won by O'Sullivan, Ryan went on to beat most of the leading British athletes in a race in Birmingham. To that extent, it was scarcely a surprise when she improved from an uncertain start to win going away at Carrignavar.

Anne Keenan-Buckley, Maureen Harrington and Geraldine Hendricken are all experienced international athletes but apart from Ryan, most Irish interest may centre on the progress of the emerging Lucan runner Naoimh Beirne who again hinted at a fine career in the making when taking the bronze medal in the intercounty championship.