Breda Dennehy enhanced her reputation as one of Ireland's most improved athletes of the year, with a splendid 5,000 metres win in the Europa Cup fixture in Lahti in Finland yesterday.

Only in the team as a replacement for Catherina McKiernan, the Bandon athlete produced career best figures of 15 minutes 42.49 seconds to build on her success in the national cross country championship earlier in the year.

Now victory was all the sweeter because it was achieved at the expense of Annmarie Sandel, the former European champion, who was running on her home territory.

Dennehy disputed the lead with the Finn for much of the journey before pulling away in the closing stages to achieve a win which she later described as the highlight of her career.

"I knew going into the race that if I was still with the leaders at the bell, I'd win," she said. "I reckoned I had a bigger kick than any of the other girls and that's the way it turned out at the finish."

Thanks to Dennehy's performance and Karen Shinkins's thrilling 400 metres win on Saturday, Ireland managed to retain their Division One status by finishing sixth in the team event, won by the Ukraine from Belarus and Finland.

The men's team was less fortunate, however, and were relegated to Division Two after finishing seventh of eight teams. They failed by only four points to overtake Belgium in sixth place, a disappointing fate after failing to make their expected impact in the throwing events.

Yet the meeting was not without merit for the Irish. In finishing third in the last event on the two-day programme the 4 x 400 metres formation of Paul McKee, Brian Forbes, Tom McGuirk and Thomas Coman set a national record of three minutes 05.45 seconds to improve by almost two seconds on the old figures which had stood for 12 years.

Susan Smith-Walsh, Zoe Arnold, Marissa Smith and Karen Shinkins also took Ireland into third place in the women's equivalent in a time of three minutes 35.69 seconds which was just outside the Irish record.

Smith-Walsh, who ran disappointingly in her specialist event, the 400 metres hurdles, was much closer to her best yesterday when finishing second in the 100 metres hurdles before returning to the track to run a fine relay leg.

The men's sprint hurdle also produced a gratifying Irish performance with Peter Coghlan of Crusaders finishing second in 13.47 seconds to improve by eight hundreds of a second on the existing record held by T J Kearns.

Gary Ryan, was just touched off by the Dutch athlete Troy Douglas in 20.96 seconds in the 200 metres, Tom McGuirk and Niall Bruton all competed well to finish second in their events but James McIlroy was relegated to fifth place in a kicking finish to the 800 metres, surprisingly won by the Finn, Pavvo Kirwa, from the Olympic champion, Vebjoern Rodal in one minute 51.31 seconds.

Ireland's men did better than expected on the track but with the requisite support not forthcoming in the field, they still found themselves relegated.

Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie and Kenyan Daniel Komen posted the fastest times this year for the 1,500 and 3,000 metres respectively at an international meeting in Stuttgart yesterday. Gebrselassie clocked three minutes 33.73 seconds for the 1,500 metres. Kenyan Benjamin Kipkirui was a distant second in 3:36.42 with Shadrack Langat, also from Kenya, third in 3:36.42.