Athletics News: The future of Irish distance running, Alistair Cragg, was on his adopted home soil yesterday for the launch of this year's National Championships, which take place in Santry in two weeks' time, July 24-25th.
It was a brief visit, partly to tie up some loose ends before the Athens Olympics, but Cragg also took time to meet some new comrades from Clonliffe Harriers in Santry, the club he'll represent in domestic competition.
It is two years now since Cragg formally announced his switch of allegiance from South Africa, the country of his birth, to Ireland, the country of his grandparents' births.
The championships will mark his first race on Irish soil, most likely over 1,500 metres, and also provide one of the final tune-ups for Athens, where he'll run the 5,000 metres.
The 24-year-old is basing himself in London for the summer, having finished at the University of Arkansas last month.
Ideally, he says, he would prefer to be in hard training back in the US but racing around Europe is part of the new experience away from collegiate competition.
"My next race will probably be in Madrid on Saturday week," he said, "over 3,000 metres. After the championships I'll probably run in London, but I do feel like I need to get in some hard training before Athens, and these races don't really come at the right time for me."
Cragg's first outing on the European circuit in Rome last weekend didn't exactly go to plan, and he found himself on sub-13-minute pace for the 5,000 metres, passing the 3,000-metre mark in 7:41. He paid for that pace a little later on, but with a best of 13:16.98 from last April, he remains the man most likely to threaten Mark Carroll's Irish record of 13:03.93.
James Nolan - Athens-bound in the 1,500 metres - will also use the National Championships as part of his final Olympic countdown, and they will in fact mark his next race after the 3:38.75 run in Lausanne on Tuesday night. For now the Offaly athlete will concentrate on training.
For the second year the championships will be sponsored by Woodie's DIY, with RTÉ also promising an hour of live coverage on the Sunday afternoon to coincide with the 1,500 metre finals, with Sonia O'Sullivan due to start in the women's version.
Meanwhile, Peter Coghlan and Karen Shinkins, two athletes still knocking on the door of Olympic qualification, compete in Madeira this weekend. Coghlan has come agonisingly close to the 110-metre hurdles time of 13.55 on several occasions, while Shinkins is a little further off the 51.50 seconds she requires over 400 metres.
