ATHLETICS NEWS:IT WASN'T without some sense of déjà vu that Athletics Ireland yesterday unveiled Kevin Ankrom as their new high performance director. The position, arguably the most important within the sport, has effectively been vacant for the past three years, although not without a few failed attempts at filling it.

Ankrom’s appointment was in fact announced in February, but he’s only now able to take up the position – and his first port of call will be joining the Athletics Ireland warm-weather training camp in Portugal, where the likes of Derval O’Rourke, Paul Hession and Olive Loughnane are completing preparations for the summer season.

He will require a fair amount of adjusting: the 43-year-old American has spent the last four years as high performance director with Athletics New Zealand, during which time he oversaw their most successful Olympics in 20 years, in Beijing in 2008, and also their most successful Commonwealth Games in 40 years, in New Delhi last October. Prior to that Ankrom worked in Hong Kong and Bahrain, having first coached at collegiate level in his native US.

Ankrom has made his intentions clear from the start; Athletics Ireland, he said, is on a sound footing, but he does see challenges at the elite end – specifically in terms of structures, consistency, and indeed communication. He said he wouldn’t be slow in making the hard decisions, including what athletes should be sent to major championships.

“I would rather take the grief for not sending an athlete with an A-standard, knowing they weren’t able to compete, than for sending a B-standard athlete knowing they were ready to compete,” he said. “In other words top-16 has to be our standard, and we can’t be sending athletes just for the sake of taking part.”

Ankrom reckoned he had ample time to make a difference for the London Olympics, even though they’re just over a year away: “Of course,” he said, “because it’s better than doing nothing at all. A lot of things can happen in a year, but the main priority is that right now Ireland has its share of top-end athletes, and its share of promising juniors. Where systems fail across the world is bridging that gap, and that’s something that needs to be done in Ireland.”

Athletics Ireland has been trying to fill the high performance director position since Max Jones vacated it after the Beijing Olympics.