ATHLETICS:EVEN THE best-laid plans sometimes go astray, and while today is the official departure date for the 16 Irish athletes qualified to compete at the Beijing Olympics - now just a week away - not all will be leaving as originally scheduled.

For four athletes, a quarter of the team, the priority now is simply to get to Beijing fit enough to compete. Alistair Cragg this week emerged as the latest injury scare, joining Eileen O'Keeffe, Joanne Cuddihy and Derval O'Rourke in that category, and has delayed his departure till Tuesday.

Cragg dropped out of the 3,000 metres at the Monaco Grand Prix last Tuesday evening with what was later revealed to be an Achilles tendon strain.

He initially played down the seriousness of it but has since travelled to the Munich sports-injury clinic of Dr Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfarth, where he will remain for treatment over the weekend.

"Alistair is happy that Dr Müller will see him through this and that his participation in Beijing is not under any real threat," says the team manager, Patsy McGonagle.

"He's positive about it, and it's really just a question of managing it right. But instead of travelling out with us, he'll stay on there over the weekend and link up in Frankfurt with the other Irish athletes coming out next Tuesday."

It means only nine of the 16 athletes will travel out this morning, flying via Frankfurt to Beijing.

O'Keeffe and Cuddihy are part of that group, but there is still considerable doubt over their participation in Beijing.

Once accredited, the team will move on to a training camp in Matsue, Japan - the place used to good effect before last year's world championships in Osaka - before returning to Beijing in the days before their events.

O'Keeffe is receiving daily treatment for a knee injury that developed after the national championships last Saturday week and continues to severely limit her hammer training.

Cuddihy has been unable to do proper 400-metre training for several weeks, the result of a back, knee and, now, calf-muscle injury.

"The latest update with Eileen is that she's making some improvement," says McGonagle. "We will continue to monitor her progress when we get to the training camp in Japan. Joanne is still in a difficult situation, but again all we can do is review things in Japan."

For O'Rourke, the adductor injury sustained at training last week could hardly have come at a worse time. She will travel direct to Matsue next Tuesday, but in the meantime she will see the Limerick sports-injury specialist Ger Hartmann today.

Normally, such an injury requires at least seven days of rest, and like Cragg, O'Keeffe and Cuddihy, O'Rourke thus misses out on the crucial period of training where competitive edge is honed.

All four will be given every chance to prove their fitness.

Cragg is still intent on running the 1,500 metres before his specialist event, the 5,000 metres, and given the track competition does not start until August 15th, he still has some time to play with.

It's far from all bad news on team fitness. Among those flying out today are Paul Hession, who will run only the 200 metres in Beijing (and not the 100, for which he has also qualified) and is rounding into the form of his life, David Gillick (400m) and RóisíMcGettigan (3,000m steeplechase).

The group flying out on Tuesday includes the 20km walker Olive Loughnane, lately showing excellent form, and Pauline Curley, who at the age of 39 gets to fulfil her Olympic dream in the marathon.