ATHLETICS:IF KEITH Kelly retires without winning the National Cross Country title then he'll be in good company. John Treacy never won it. Nor did Noel Berkeley. That's because it's a damn hard race to win.

Kelly is among the best cross country runners to come out of Ireland in the last decade – possibly the best. Yet he’s never even run the Nationals. After winning the American collegiate cross country title in 2000 (a damn harder race to win), he’s missed out every year – mainly because of injury, but also, he admits, because he felt he didn’t need to run.

Well, he gets his chance in Santry tomorrow, and Kelly is cherishing it. At 31, he had practically walked away from the sport last year, but just couldn’t shake the hunger to give it one more shot. He’s only been back training seriously for four months, but was top Irish finisher at last Sunday’s Rás na hÉireann in his native Drogheda.

The only problem is that he’s nursing a knee injury, and, while he intends to line up, it remains to be seen how he copes over the 12km distance. The idea, however, is to gain some familiarity with the course that will be used for the European Cross Country in December – because Kelly intends on being there too.

There are several more challengers. Defending champion Cathal Lombard is not around, but Inter-counties winner Alan McCormack from Dundrum and former champions Vinny Mulvey of Raheny and Gary Murray of St Malachy’s will certainly test Kelly to his limit.

Linda Byrne of Dundrum is odds-on favourite for the women’s title, and for good reason. Defending champion Fionnuala Britton is coming off a 14-week lay-off with a stress fracture and won’t be competing for several more weeks yet. However, Maria McCambridge, though recently a marathon convert, will give Byrne a good run for her money.

First off tomorrow is the junior women (1.0), followed by junior men (1.40), the senior women (2.35) and senior men (3.15).