CATHERINA MCKIERNAN, the former European champion, hopes to have her first big race of the cross country season at Tourcoing in France, a week on Sunday.
After a protracted recovery from the injury problems which have turned this into her most difficult season of recent years, she considers that her damaged foot is now strong enough for competition.
As yet, she is still some way short of racing fitness but will use the visit to France to assess more accurately the extent of her progress since returning to full training less than a month ago.
At this point, the IAAF Grand Pnx series, an event she dominated in its early years, has probably drifted beyond her reach. Also at risk is her challenge for the World Cross Country Championship in which she finished second on four consecutive appearances before trailing down the field in Cape Town last year.
Although there are still two months to go to the world tests, it is felt by some that the tight timescale involved will make it difficult for her to reach peak condition.
The counter argument is that, after several years of tough competition, she has raced only lightly this winter and that this could be a major plus when the season's biggest race is staged at Turin on March 23rd.
As yet, it is still not clear whether McKiernan will go there as an individual or as a member of a full Irish team. Because of the cost factor involved, BLE officials, in their wisdom, decided some time ago that they would not send a team to Italy if they finished out of the top six in the European Championship at Charleroi last month.
After that event, it looked as if Ireland would not be represented in the team championship for the first time in many years but since then, the situation has been complicated with the disqualification of the winner, Iulia Negura of Romania.
Negura who also won the world 15 kilometres championship when it was staged in Dublin some years ago, faces a four year ban by the International Amateur Athletics Federation after testing positive for stanozolol, a derivative of the hormone, testosterone.
It is not yet clear, however, if the entire Romanian team which ran in Charleroi, will be banned because of Negura's action and if it is, how, it will effect BLE's original ruling on sending a team to the world tests.
The Irish finished in joint seventh place with Spain in the European championship and if the Romanian team is disqualified, they will, presumably, be moved up a place in the table.
A spokesman for the board yesterday said that they had not as yet been advised of any amendment in the final placings at Charleroi and until such time as they were, the question of whether to revise their plans for the world championships, was hypothetical.
