Catherina McKiernan's new emphasis on road running will take her to Barcelona on Sunday in search of her third win in Europe in less than two months. After her splendid run in the Berlin marathon, followed at a surprisingly short interval by a 15-kilometre race in Amsterdam, the Cavan woman now moves down the scale still further to compete over six kilometres in Spain.
The decision to go to Barcelona means that she misses out on the national inter-counties cross country championship at Tinryland at the weekend and that, in turn, means that she will not run in the European Cross Country Championship at Lisbon on December 14th.
This was the championship McKiernan won in its inaugural year and the fact that she has now seen fit to bypass it will be interpreted as further evidence that her great love affair with cross country running is waning. It is a theory which she dismisses, pointing to the fact that she will run in the international cross country race in Durham on January 4th and Ras na hEireann at Dunleer early in February. "Cross country running is still very important to me,"
The World Cross Country Championship in March, an event in which she has finished second on three occasions without ever making it to the top spot, still figures tentatively in her programme. As yet, however, it is still not clear if she will compete in the national inter-club championship which normally provides the basis for selection for the world race.
Next Sunday's programme at Tinryland is given added significance by the fact that the first three finishers out of an entry of more than 200 for the men's race and the first two across the line in the women's event will automatically be included in the team for the European championship in Lisbon.
Barring the sensational, Gerry McGrath of Dundrum-South Dublin will not be claiming one of those men's places and yet, as a member of the Dublin team that has won the men's senior title for the last 10 years, he is likely to be one of the news-makers in the race. Noel Cullen, Peter Matthews, Noel Berkely, Cian McLoughlin and Colm de Burca will be others expected to score heavily for the champions, but whether any of them is capable of finishing in front of the defending champion, Seamus Power from Clare, is open to question.
Power was, by some way, the outstanding performer in domestic competition last year when he joined the elite group of athletes who have won the inter-counties and inter-club titles in the same season. More than that, he was the leading Irish finisher in the world race in Turin, an achievement he replicated at a recent international race at Margate.
Richard Mulligan (Galway), Noel Richardson (Kilkenny), Pat Hegarty (Donegal) and John Kearney (Cork) all have chances of getting into the top six without appearing to possess the requisite finishing speed to trouble Power. Westmeath will be expected to finish closest to Dublin in the team event.
Marie McMahon, Clare's American-based Olympic athlete, will challenge for the women's title. To win it for the first time, she will need to be running close to the top of her form in a race which, in addition to the holder, Maureen Harrington of Kerry, includes such proven competitors as Teresa Duffy (Antrim), Louise Cavanagh (Cork), Annette Kealy (Dublin) and the consistent Galway woman Bernie Stankard.
