Qualification level too high

Coaches and athletes fear that unrealistic qualification standards for this year's World Championships could force hopefuls to use performance enhancing drugs or quit the sport altogether.

Many of the qualification standards for the World Indoor Championships in Lisbon and the outdoor World Championships in Canada later this year are beyond existing Irish records and many more are marks which no Irish athlete has ever attained.

"I agree completely," says Olympic javelin thrower Terry McHugh. "I am very pleased to hear the remark by Steve Backley's (Olympic silver medalist javelin thrower) coach who said that if these qualifying standards are not killing off the field events, or making competitors think how they can achieve them, I don't know what is . . . I had been saying that to Steve years ago."

In the long jump, Ciaran McDonagh, who became the first ever Irish athlete to clear eight metres at the Seville World Championships, must again clear that distance to achieve a "B" standard for the outdoor world championships this summer and 8.15 metres for the indoor event in March. The "A" qualification standard for both championships is 8.25 metres, a distance no Irish person has ever achieved.

"It is absolutely outlandish that the qualification standard is set so high," says McHugh. "Ciaran McDonagh was 10th on the day when he jumped eight metres at the World Championships."

Patsy McGonagle, who was the athletics team manager at the Sydney Olympics, points to the modernisation of the championships and the demands of television forcing up the standard.

"Television only wants a small number in field events and so qualification is harder," he says. "It is now too tough."