Ireland's David Gillick is still desperately keen to run in Helsinki after assessing the extent of the lower back injury that forced him to withdraw from the 400 metre final at the European Under-23 Championships in Erfurt, Germany on Saturday night.
Although he has the B-standard required for Helsinki, Gillick is expected to run at the National Championships in order to gain selection.
"At this stage I'm just not sure if I'll be able to run at the weekend," he explained yesterday evening. "I'll be seeing the physio all week, but I really don't want to hinder my chances of running in Helsinki by trying to come back too fast. But I may have to run if I want to be selected."
Gillick will discuss the matter with Athletics Ireland, and sounded reasonably optimistic that he could come right again for Helsinki: "The only positive thing is that there's nothing torn, and there's no tissue damage. It's just a problem with the lumbar area of the spine, that's sending a pain down my hamstring. It did flare up a before the Cork City Sports two weeks ago, but then seemed to clear up before the weekend.