From Dr. Garrett Coughlan Almost 90 athletes will take to the start line tomorrow night in Irishtown for the second Irish Milers Club meeting of the year with a large Northern Ireland continent also traveling south for event. Five 800m races and two 3000m races are to be staged with the men’s A 800m topping the bill. Europa Cup winner Alan O’Brien will be facing a small army of up and coming 800m starts such as Mark Patterson, Mark Mc Donald, Anthony Lieghio, John Coghlan and Darren Mc Brearty, all of whom have run personal bests in IMC meetings in the past 12 months.
Kevin Moriarty, Aidan Bailey and Daire Bermingham will also look to feature in what promises to be a very exciting race. 400m specialist Simon Taggart will take the pace through to 600m. The men’s B 800m see’s a number of 1500m athletes stepping down such as Pat Mc Carton, Keith Maher and Brian Farrell with Para-Olympic Gold Medallist Michael Mc Killop searching for another fast time.
Similarly the men’s C + D 800m races have a strong mix of young and old athletes in search of personal and season’s best performances with Taggart and Joe Warne sharing pacing duties. The women’s 800m features Laura Scriven, Christine Long, Ciara Durkan and Becky Woods who will all be looking to fill the minor placings.
The men’s 3000m features two of Ireland’s most promising juniors from the past few years who are starting to fulfill their potential in Brendan O’Neill and Stephen Scullion – Martin Conroy will take the pace out at sub 8.10 pace. 30 other athletes will line up in this race with many looking to run sub 8.30 and 9 minutes for the first time.
The women’s 3000m will feature a large number of DSD athletes looking to run Euro Junior and Euro u-23 times led by the French O’Carroll twins with Aoife Brady taking the pace. The meeting kicks off at 7.30 pm and with registration for all races closing at 7.00 pm. A large crowd is expected on the night with excellent racing conditions forecast. All are very welcome.
Dr. Garrett Coughlan,
Post Doctoral Research Fellow,
Stim XDP Research Group,
Institute of Sport and Health,
Newstead Building
University College Dublin,
Belfield,
Dublin 4,
Ireland.
garrett.coughlan@ucd.ie