Jason and David Book Flights to Beijing

Jason and David Book Flights to Beijing

IAAF

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David McCarthy in action at Cork City Sports

City of Derry sprinter Jason Smyth booked his place for the World Junior Championships in Beijing next month when he equalled the Irish Junior (U20) record of 10.61 seconds in Germany.

Competing in DLV Junioren Gala in Mannheim, Smyth finished fourth in his heat with the assistance of a minimal breeze in his back.

The time is also a Northern Ireland junior record taking a tenth of a second off Simon Baird’s twenty year old record.

Smyth was relieved to have got the qualification after missing out on several occasions this season due to windy conditions.

In fact the Eglinton man spent the time between his heat and semi-final rushing around trying to get confirmation of his time and the wind reading.

The consequence of this was that he slipped back to 10.78 in the semi meaning he missed out on a place in the final which was won by Britain’s World Youths champion Harry Aikines-Aryeetey.

Smyth was listed to run the 200 metres the following day but withdrew after his warm-up complaining about a tight hamstring.

Another Derry-based athlete David McCarthy will also be on the plane to China after clocking 1:49.93 for sixth in a very competitive 800 metres.

McCarthy was last of the nine competitors at the bell reached in 54 seconds before moving through to take over a second off his previous best.

The 17-year-old also ran 3:48.60 for 1500 metres on the first evening of meeting to miss out on qualification for that distance by three-fifths of a second.

McCarthy will turning out over the metric mile distance again at the Irish Senior Championships at Santry in 10 days time when he will probably face Alistair Cragg.

At the weekend the former South African installed himself as hot favourite for next month’s European Athletics Championships when he became only the second athlete from the continent to break the 13 minutes barrier for 5000 metres.

Running in the IAAF Paris Grand Prix on Saturday night Cragg took more than six seconds off Mark Carroll’s eight year old Irish record with a time of 12 minutes 57.60 seconds.

Former Moroccan Mohammed Mourhit running in Belgium colours holds the European record of 12:49.71 from 2000.

Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele was the winner of the race in a world-leading 12:51.32 with Cragg back in fifth.

Results: Mannheim

100m (Heat 1)- C Blum (GER) 10.51, 2 J Reus (GER) 10.54, 3 E Yeboah (SWE) 10.55, 4 J Smyth (IRL) 10.61 (=NJR) , 5 E Karlsson (SWE) 10.82, 6 D Christenson (DEN) 11.19;

100m (Semi-Final) – 1 Yeboah 10.47, 2 S Schwab (GER) 10.64, 3 M Sewald (GER) 10.69, 4 M Szebeny (HUN) 10.69, 5 P Mubiayi (FRA) 10.74, 6 Smyth 10.78;

800m - 1 R Schembera (GER) 1:47.29, 2 S Reiner (GER) 1:47.61, 3 D Jurkevics (LAT) 1:47.61, 4 T Pöllänen (SWE) 1:48.97, 5 M Rose (GER) 1:49.46, 6 D McCarthy (IRL)1:49.93, 7 S Ludolph (GER)1:50.84, 8 M Bashir (SWE)1:52.49, 9 M Hrstka (CZE)1:55.90;

1500m 1 F Zauber (GER) 3:47.63, 2 J Raabe (GER)3:48.44, 3 D McCarthy (IRL) 3:48.60, 4 S Breit (SUI) 3:50.12, 5 F Schulze (GER) 3:50.78, 6 A Lenz (GER) 3:53.08;

GRANT CONTINUES RETURN
Diarmuid Grant continued a successful comeback after being sidelined several months through injury when he finished second in the Cranford 4.2 Mile Road Race.

The race was part of Donegal Grand Prix Series and Pauric McKinney continued his domination by running out a comfortable winner in 20 minutes 57 seconds.

The 41-year-old Letterkenny athlete picked up the pace at the halfway point to get away from his younger rival.

At the tape he had 16 seconds to spare over Grant with Kieran Carlin from the FinnValley club in third with a time of 21:28.

However, the man who led City of Derry to its first ever NI Senior Men’s Cross-Country team title back in February was not disappointed with his performance.

“I’m just racing myself back to fitness at the minute,” said Grant. “Pauric was putting in a number of surges and I just had to let him go.”

“I ran better today than last week in the Rathfanham 5K in Dublin. I started too fast then and paid for it later in the race.”

Helena Crossan maintained her ascendency in the women’s race winning in 20:25. Lagan Valley’s Julie Murphy who was holidaying in Donegal took second place in 27:08 with Lousie Finnegan third another 12 seconds back.

Results: 1 Pauric McKinney 20.57, 2 Diarmuid Grant 21.13, 3 Kieran Carlin 21.28, 4 Ivan Toner 22.27, 5 Donal Gallagher 22.37, 6 Pat Hegarty (M45) 23.45, 7 Martin Gormley (M40) 24:02, 8 Hugh Duffy 24:08, 9 PJ Boyce (M40) 24:20, 10 Humphrey Murphy (M40) 24:33;

Ladies – 13 Helena Crossan 25:20, 21 Julie Murphy 27:08, 24 Louise Finnegan 27:20.