Athletics: Rarely have Irish athletes had such an impact on an English event as this weekend's AAA Indoor Championships, staged at the Sheffield Arena. Three gold medals and several runner-up positions - almost all coming in the sprint events - has again underlined the new breed of Irish athletes, and added numbers too to the team headed to next month's World Indoor Championships in Budapest.

The 400-metre victory for Rob Daly was perhaps the most unexpected, but as much deserved. Yesterday he collected gold in 46.68 seconds in what was one of the finest runs of his career, a time also inside the qualifying time for Budapest.

Just a stride behind Daly in second place in 47.03 was David McCarthy, a finalist at last year's World Indoors, and clearly coming into his best form at a good time. Former champion Jamie Baulch of Wales was third.

Then it was the turn of Ciara Sheehy to do the business over 200 metres and she did it in style, defeating Joice Maduaka, who had won the 60 metres on Saturday, as the Dublin woman sprinted home to win in 23.41, which is also well inside the qualifying standard (23.55) for the World Championships.

And there was plenty of consolation for Joanne Cuddihy of Kilkenny as she bounced back from being disqualified in the heats of the 400 metres on Saturday to qualify for the final and then finish third in 24.25 to take the bronze medal.

Paul Brizzel showed he is in super form by dominating the final of the 200 metres to take the gold medal in 20.98. Brizzel won from Britain's Tim Abeyle (21.02) with Paul Hession, the young man from Galway, taking the bronze in 21.13.

Hession had won his heat in 21.30, a personal best, and then clocked an impressive 21.01 to win his semi-final, a time inside the Budapest standard of 21.05.

Derval O'Rourke took the bronze medal in the final of the 60 metres hurdles with 8.27.

On Saturday, Ailis McSweeney from Cork and Anna Boyle of Ballymena had already got the Irish flag flying with silver and bronze medals in the 60 metres.

There was also the rare achievement of an Irish medal in a field event, with silver going to Adrian O'Dwyer for a personal best 2.20 metres in the high jump.

Finally, Maria McCambridge is also headed to Budapest after finishing second in the 3,000 metres in 9:02.10.