Athletics London Marathon: The Irish challenges in yesterday's London Marathon all fell disappointingly short; Mark Carroll's race among the elite ended long before the finish and the other attempts at Olympic qualification ended in failure.
Carroll was thinking of improving on the two hours 10 minutes and 54 seconds he achieved in New York in 2002, which has booked his place in Athens, but instead he was forced to drop out around the 16-mile mark. His best on this occasion simply wasn't going to reach the standard he'd hoped.
Despite sitting in the back of the leading group for the first eight miles, Carroll soon found himself in trouble and a few miles later was running isolated and a little tired. The leg injury that had sidelined him for much of last year was also a concern and with that he decided to reserve a full effort for another day.
"I had fallen off the pace I was looking for at that point," he said, "and I just felt it wasn't going to happen for me on the day. I was also a little concerned about the injury and I wasn't confident I could get to finish with it being a real problem."
Conditions were also far from ideal with a cold rain and breeze adding to the challenge. The Kenyan winner, Evan Rutto, did produce a very respectable time of 2:06.18 in the circumstances but the depth of quality was certainly down on previous years.
Six other Irish men had gone to the line hoping to add to Carroll's achievement of gaining the Olympic qualifying time of 2:15 but only four of those managed to finish. Martin McCarthy was given the best chance of doing it but he only lasted 12 miles, about the same distance as Peter Mathews, who dropped out with a stomach cramp.
The top Irish finisher, then, was Dublin's Cian McLoughlin, who came home in 34th position in 2:20.45. National champion Gary Crossan was next in 39th in 2:21.48, then Pauric McKinney in 2:22.15 in 43rd, while Paolo Diaglio struggled to break three hours.
The women's race was won in the modest time of 2:22.35 by the Kenyan Margaret Okayo, who after looking a spent force at 11 miles bounced back to add the London title to the New York crown she won in November.
The Irish attempts at Olympic qualification here came a little closer when US-based Valerie Young came home 19th in 2:41.32, but still several minutes short of the 2:37 standard.
Valerie Vaughan also put herself in contention to achieve the time but faded to 28th in 2:47.56.
The testing conditions were underlined when Rutto, Chicago champion last October, cut his knees when falling along with Sammy Korir three miles from the finishing line. His fellow Kenyan quickly recovered, but when Rutto powered away just over a mile later, the world's second quickest-ever marathon runner had to settle for second, half a minute in arrears. World champion Jaouad Gharib of Morocco was third in 2:07:02.
Britain's Jon Brown put an appearance fee row to the back of his mind to easily reach his desired Olympic qualifying standard, taking 15th place in 2:13.39.
The most stirring story from either race was provided by Brown's fellow Briton Tracey Morris who was not alone the first British woman across the line, but was also well inside the Athens qualifying mark, finishing in 2:33.52. Not bad when one considers the 36-year-old only took up serious running 18 months ago and took well over an hour off her previous best to join Paula Radcliffe and Liz Yelling on the Olympic marathon team.
