WORLD CHAMPI features NATIONAL PRIDE. Frank Greally reports from the Kelloggs 12 Bran Flakes BLE National T&F Championships. QUEEN MICHELE. Sean McGoldrick on Michele Carroll - 14 Ireland's best and most durable sprinter. OFF THE RECORD. Below par perhaps, but this year's Bislett 16 Games still provided many fine performances. RECORD MACHINE. What can you say about Noureddine 18 Morceli? Phil Minshull tries anyway. NINE DAYS IN GOTHENBURG. Ten pages of results, analysis 26 and comment on the fifth World Athletics Championships. OLYMPIC SHOWDOWN. Pat Hickey talks to Sean 54 McGoldrick. departments & regulars FOOTNOTES News from the REFLECTIONS The best of 6 sport. 50 George Sheehan. TRIBUTE Michael Joyce FIXTURES What's going on 9 remembers Fanahan 52 and where. McSweeney. HEALTH & FITNESS Tips for VETERANS Pat Bonass on 10 a better, leaner life. 58 the age-group scene. YOUNG ATHLETE Liam UPDATE News of the 1995 22 Moggan with news, tips and 60 Golden Pages Dublin training for younger readers. Marathon. RESULTS Six pages of names CROSSWORD A chance to 42 and races. 62 win with Reebok. No part of this magazine may be used or reproduced without the express permission of the editor or publishers, and even if such permission is given, the source must be acknowledged when used. This also applies to advertising originated by the publishers. :r Frank Greally • Marketing Director Martin Joyce • Subeditor Colette Cowlard • Consulting Editor Conor O'Hagan • : :craphy Sportsfile Terry O'Rourke, Stephen Humphreys, INPHO, Mark Shearman • Accounts Joyce Williams • - : r~ : - ; Sdes Media Representation Services, Declan Matthews, Robert Heuston. • Production Co-Ordinator Annette Quirke • Jim Aughney, Anne Barry Pat Bonass, Noel Carroll, Joe Conway, John Dooley, Richard Gallagher, Rory - Gerard Hartmann, Brendan Hackett, Dick Hooper, Frank Horwill, Michael Joyce, Pat McCourt, Sean McGoldrick, Ge—. •AcGrath, Phil Minshull, Liam Moggan, Lindie Naughton, Pierce O'Callaghan, Tom O'Riordan, Niamh Richardson • ~ - - -T~ • B'-enda Cowlard • Design Alec Tuohy • Printed by Kilkenny People Printing Ltd. • Distributed by Newspread Ltd. A -*m C PROMOTIONS LTD., 288 Harold's Cross Road, Dublin 6W. Tel: (01) 492 2718/2413/2502. Fax: (01) 492 3089. issn 0332-2947. footnotes seven years. This enabled him to compete in quite a few coun­ RUNNING THE COUNTRY ties, before he moved out of intermediate as a member of a THERE IS a current catchy advertising slogan devised by a winning county team in 1988. certain well-known shoe company which simply says, 'You When he had achieved about 18 different counties, Denis felt either ran today, or you didn't'. For East Cork athlete, Denis that his his goal was attainable. Obviously, for someone in the McCarthy (pictured), this question Just does far south of the country, the northern counties not arise, for, on June 5th last, Denis com­ would be the hardest to get to. A trip to Belfast pleted ten years without missing a single in '91 saw him get in Antrim (Belfast Games day’s running. 3000m), and the following day, Armagh The greatest exponent of an unbroken run­ (Craigavon 10K). This was despite getting lost ning streak has to be Doctor Ron Hill, the in the Craigavon race, ending up in the ‘twen­ European, Commonwealth and Boston ties’, an incident (one of many, we hasten to Marathon champion from the late 'sixties and add) that is now consigned to the folklore of early 'seventies, who has a streak going all East Cork AC. the way back to December 1964. Seven or One of the most novel races was an 11 mile eight years ago, Hill recorded another unique event in Comber, Co. Down, comprising of landmark by competing in 50 different coun­ road, fell and cross-country. Some of the tries before his fiftieth birthday. races he won include the now-defunct It was this achievement of Hill's that prompt­ Rosslare Half-Marathon in 1983, two ten mile ed Denis McCarthy to go for a similar target, races in Youghal and Leamybrien (Co. that of running a race in each of the 32 coun­ Waterford), and a '1 OK' in Ballyporeen, Co. ties on this island, before his 32nd birthday. Tipperary. This he accomplished in March of last year, At Christmas '93, Denis had Just three coun­ with some nine months to spare, and he must ties to go. On St. Stephens Day, he travelled surely be the only runner to achieve this quite to Tyrone, where, on a snow-covered course remarkable feat. he finished third in the Greencastle '1 OK'. A Denis started in athletics as a juvenile in 1976, competing in week later, he availed of an invitation to take part in the Derry the local East Cork Cross country leagues, which also served Cross Country Championships, thus leaving just Monaghan on as a grounding for Sonia O'Sullivan a few years later, his father, his agenda, and this he 'bagged' the following March when he Dan, has been a long-standing servant of athletics in the area, finished fourth in a road race in Glaslough. as chairman of the East Cork Board, and is probably best For most of the races in the far North, it meant leaving his known to outside runners as the official starter of the many home in Ballynoe at an unearthly hour, and not arriving back road races in the region, in particular the Ballycotton '10'. until near midnight. One of the longest journeys he undertook With personal bests on the track of 8:33 for 3000m and 14:58 was to Donegal, a round trip of about 500 miles. He left home a: for 5000m, Denis is no mean performer. He has represented 5.30am, slept for a short while in his car alongside the tomb of Cork on many occasions in cross-country, particularly in the W.B. Yeats in Drumcliffe, Sligo, before going on to Donegal intermediate grade where he was a regular on the team for Town where he finished 6th in a '5K' on the road. was Just 30 seconds short of his previ­ RETURN OF ous winning time. As he is aiming to MAGNIFICENT 9 peak for the World Cup in September it THE NINE member Irish Junior team per­ LENIHAN was an encouraging performance. formed heroically at the recent JOHN LENIHAN (right) made a strong European Junior Championships in return to international competition in the Hungary. Leading the way was long annual National Grid Snowdon Mountain jumper, Ciaran McDonagh, whose effort Race against world class opposition. of 7.73cm came within five centimetres o* The 10 mile up and down race has a the gold medal. 3,140 foot climb and in hot conditions His Jump shattered the existing Irish Lenihan started steadily, then passed Junior record and was Just a centimetre two English and one Italian runner to be away from the bronze medal position and first to the summit in 40:58. three from silver. James Nolan also That time has only been bettered by occupied fourth place in the 800m final, ascent record holder Robin Bryson and clocking 1:48.43 behind the Spanish win­ race record holder Kenny Stuart, and by ner, Roberto Parra (1.45.90). Gillian Lenihan himself when he won in 1989. O’Sullivan set a new Irish Junior record in Unfortunately, that victory was not to be the 5km walk in which she finished ninth; repeated as the Italian Gino Caneva Jamie Costin was outside his best in fin­ quickly passed him, and then the even­ ishing thirteenth in the 10k walk; Andrew tual winner Mark Kinch of England came Walker and Alan Dunleavy reached the by to finish in 1:02.58, Just 29 seconds finals of the 1500m and 5000m, respec­ outside the 10 year old record. tively; Kevin Walker was eliminated in the Nevertheless, Lenihan maintained 3rd heats of the 1500m and Mandy Bloomer place to finish in a time of 1:04.42, which went out in the heats of the 400m hur­ would have won the race last year and dles. 6 IRISH RUNNER footnotes to enter any clothing deals for the Atlanta Games as the OCI CLOTHES WAR planned to do their own deal. THE ONGOING conflict between BLE “They did not send it to me." and the Olympic Council of Ireland over Wall totally refutes a claim the sponsorship of the gear to be worn made by Hickey that there is by Irish athletes at next year’s Olympic no monetary element in the Games in Atlanta rumbles on. BLE deal with Asics. In the latest twist in the long running “I can state quite categorically saga BLE claim that their position was that there is a financial ele­ vindicated as a result of decisions taken ment in the package. Pat at the IAAF Congress in Gothenburg dur­ Hickey does not know what he ing the World Championships. is talking about." He added According to BLE International Secre­ that the conflict over the gear tary, Christy Wall, the Congress decided was an international issue and that Rules 12 and 139 would be BLE had always adopted a low enforced at the track and field events at key approach to it. the Atlanta Games. “I understand Pat’s (Hickey) In practical terms this means that the position. It’s difficult to step clothing worn by the athletes competing back from where he was at. It in the Games must be approved by their is difficult for him to admit that national federation and the track and he was wrong.” field events at the Games would be run Commenting on Hickey’s under the auspices of technical dele­ suggestion that members of gates appointed by the IAAF.