LS
for those of you interested, some press releases by the IAAF about the
upcoming WCC in Dublin.
Courtesy IAAF,
Regards,
WIlmar Kortleever


LEOPARDSTOWN WILL SPUR SUCCESS IN DUBLIN
21 March 2002
MONACO – Monte Carlo - Dublin’s Leopardstown racecourse, which will host
the 30th IAAF World Cross Country
Championships this weekend, is more than eager to welcome the world’s
best distance runners, as due to matters
beyond it’s control, namely the major foot and mouth outbreak, the 29th
edition had to be cancelled. Last year’s
championships were of course saved, when the Belgium port of Ostend
played host to this annual festival of running.

The Leopardstown course was completed in 1888. The architect was a
Captain George Quin, who used as his model,
England’s equally famous Sandown racecourse. Since it’s purchase by The
Racing Board in 1967, which saved the track
from being redeveloped, it has been continuously upgraded and developed
to become one of the premier race venues in
Europe.

The Irish have a love affair with everything equine but this weekend the
stars will be entirely two footed, the human
thoroughbreds providing their own impulsion around the various World
championship courses, men’s or women’s, long or
short, senior or junior.

Ireland’s athletics tradition is deeply imbedded, with one of the
earliest series of organised competitions in Europe dating
back as far as 1857, held under the auspices of Dublin’s Trinity
College. A century later, Dublin saw a famous World
record (3:54.5) in the men’s mile by Australia’s unbeatable Herb Elliott
in 1958.

In the annals of Irish running who can forget Dublin’s own ‘Chairman of
the Boards’ Eamonn Coghlan, who was at the
height of his powers when winning the inaugural IAAF World 5000 metres
championships gold in Helsinki in 1983. Yet if
we are going to specifically talk about Irish cross country history, we
should look no further than Coghlan’s contemporary
John Treacy who won two World Cross Country gold medals in 1978 and
1979.

More recently still, Ireland’s World Cross Country hopes were so nearly
fulfilled when Catherina McKiernan narrowly
missed the title, settling for the silver medal in 1992, 1993, 1994 and
1995! The present heroine of Irish running
continues to be Sonia O’Sullivan who famously won the short and long
course golden double at the 1998 World Cross
Country Championships in Marrakech.


VIENNA FALL SHOULDN’T UPSET MOURHIT’S DUBLIN DEFENCE
20 March 2002

MONACO – Monte Carlo - At the beginning of March, Belgium’s Mohammed
Mourhit, the reigning double men’s long
course IAAF World Cross Country champion, made, what was for most
spectators, a surprise season’s indoor debut,
competing in the 3000 metres final at the European Indoor Championships
in Vienna.

Unfortunately, while the race itself was always part of Mourhit’s
preparations for his attempt at a ‘hat trick’ of World Cross
Country titles in Dublin next weekend, the outcome of that Viennese
interlude certainly was not! On the very first lap of
the 3000 metres, Mourhit fell, eventually finishing a distant sixth
(7:59.79).

Currently training with Maurice, his eldest brother and coach, in
Ilfrane in their native Morocco, Mourhit concedes that
Vienna was a great disappointment, particularly as it didn’t allow him
to truly gauge his form. The trip to Austria was also
the only interlude in a period of intensive training that began at New
Year and will reach its crescendo in Dublin.

However, Mourhit’s time trials are faster, and he also believes he is in
overall better physical shape than last year when
he retained his long course title for the first time in Ostend, Belgium.
The aim of a third gold medal is definitely feasible,
after all “that is what we have been training for,” commented his
brother.

Mourhit intends to travel to Dublin quite late this week, on Thursday
21st March or perhaps even Friday. “The race will be
difficult and the Ethiopian team stand out as the toughest competitors,”
confirmed Maurice, but “nevertheless he is
extremely confident and with God’s help he will be the best once again.”

Mourhit, who has competed for Belgium since 1997, and is the first man
to simultaneously hold European records on
the track at 3000, 5000 and 10,000 metres since Finland’s Paavo Nurmi in
the 1920’s, also has a very demanding
summer schedule planned, competing in the IAAF Golden League meetings,
the World Cup in Madrid and the
European Championships in Munich.


RADCLIFFE AND O’SULLIVAN ARE READY FOR THEIR DAY AT THE RACES
19 March 2002
MONACO – Monte Carlo - The Leopardstown race course in Dublin, which
next weekend hosts the 30th IAAF World
Cross Country Championships, has attracted Europe’s finest women’s cross
country duo, Britain’s Paula Radcliffe, the
reigning long course champion, and Ireland’s Sonia O’Sullivan, the 1998
long and short course champion. Radcliffe and
O’Sullivan, are the only European senior women to have succeeded at
these championships, since the victory of
Portugal’s Albertina Dias on home turf in Amorebieta in 1993.

Radcliffe and O’Sullivan, will each ‘only’ contest one distance in
Dublin, the long and short course races respectively.
Radcliffe decided to run just the long race because of the small amount
of time between Dublin and her much awaited
marathon debut in London this April. However, as to the question of
whether the World Cross Country is still important to
her, her answer is unequivocal. “Oh yes!” Radcliffe said last week. “The
World Cross has always been tremendously
important to me…and it is more so this time because I am defending
champion.”

Radcliffe is confident that she is on target to become the first woman
to successfully defend the long course title, since
America’s Lynn Jennings in Boston, a decade ago. “I want to win it as
often as possible,” confirmed Radcliffe. “The
training has gone well. I have been really pleased with the last eight
weeks. I am going into Dublin in as good a shape as I
have ever gone into a World Cross,” concluded the Briton who also has
one bronze and two silver medals from the
championships to her name.

Sonia O’Sullivan, by contrast to Radcliffe, is probably lucky to be
running at all in Dublin, as it was only on December
23rd 2001 that O’Sullivan gave birth to her second daughter Sophie!
However, O’Sullivan is adamant that Dublin was
always in her plans, and that her recent fitness has indicated that
racing is a realistic prospect. “I always wanted to run in
Dublin, but was never convinced until the past few weeks when my
training has improved a lot, and I feel I will be a really
useful point scorer for Ireland.”

O’Sullivan kept up a good level of fitness prior to Sophie’s birth, and
was even in the gym on the morning of the delivery!
It is upon that fitness base that she has built, taking each training
session as it comes. As to specific aims for the race,
O’Sullivan is naturally realistic but given the nature of her athletic
pedigree, surely nothing should be discounted.

I would hope to finish in the top 10, running as close to the leaders as
possible, for as long as possible,” continued
O’Sullivan, who failed to finish the short course race in Ostend last
year. “You never know what will happen as the race
gets closer to the finish…. I know that if I will see an Irish flag or
hear a little child cheering for me I will block out the pain
and put in an extra effort to improve my position.”

Follow the event on the IAAF website: www.iaaf.org