(As published in the “Irish Examiner”, Tuesday 30 Mar 2010)
By Brendan Mooney
Athletics news
DERVAL O’ROURKE will be one of the stars in action when her club, Leevale AC, stages its Annual Sports at the CIT track, Bishopstown, on April 18.
This will be O’Rourke’s first competitive appearance in her native city since finishing fourth in the world championships in Berlin last year but, this time around, the 100m sprint rather than the 100m hurdles will be her target.
“We have our strongest ever women’s 4x100m relay squad,” he insisted. “We have an excellent chance of running the qualifying time of 44.50 secs and getting to the European championships. We will send a team to Geneva to try for the time and then we have the European team event – formerly the Europa Cup.”
Derval O’Rourke is stronger and faster than ever over 100m and she is joined by her Leevale training partner and national champion Ailis McSweeney, Claire Brady from Celbridge who represented Ireland at the recent world indoor championships in Doha, long jump record holder, Kelly Proper and her Ferrybank clubmate, Niamh Whelan, and Amy Foster who is looking for a Commonwealth Games qualifying standard at the moment.
“We have brought in Terri Cahill to help with the preparation of the squad,” John Sheehan said. “She already coaches Derval O’Rourke and Ailis McSweeney and she was delighted to help out.”