Athletics: Crusaders athletic club yesterday announced that they would no longer be living the nomadic lifestyle with a move to Irishtown Stadium in Ringsend Park finally affording them a permanent home, reports Johnny Watterson.
It will bring the club and track back to the halcyon days of Irish athletics. Club member Ronnie Delany, the 1956 Olympic champion, set an Irish record for the 800 metres in Irishtown stadium in 1952. Irishtown was also the original site for the National Athletics Stadium before Billy Morton declared interest in building at Santry.
The proposed refurbishment of the track was latterly the brainchild of the late Noel Carroll, who was former spokesman for Dublin Corporation, CEO of Dublin Chamber of Commerce and an Olympic athlete. Now with the support of Eoin Ryan TD and Ruairi Quinn TD the redevelopment of the track and ancillary facilities, which includes five-a-side soccer pitches and Irishtown Stadium soccer pitch, is definitely going ahead.
Gaelic games: Munster Council GAA officials were taken by surprise at their monthly meeting when treasurer Declan Moylan announced he would not be seeking re-election at the March convention.
The Limerick county board has now signalled that they will be nominating treasurer Michael Fitzgerald for the position.
Limerick under-21 hurlers Kevin Tobin, Damien Reale and Niall Mullane were among eight students to receive Munster GAA scolarships. The others were Limerick camogie stars, Vera Sheehan and Eileen O`Brien, Charlie Condon (Roscommon), Eoin Curtin (Clare) and Padraig Keane (Mayo).
Sligo County secretary Tom Kilcoyne welcomes the new format for the All-Ireland football championship in his report to next Wednesday's county convention.
The secretary says the new format, agreed at the special congress, is more realistic in an era when teams are spending so much time, energy and money on their championship preparations.
Kilcoyne said he was a bit nostalgic however following the "watering down" of the cut and thrust of real "in or out" knockout championship.
Paralympics: An inquiry by the Spanish Paralympic Committee is to investigate four more athletes after 10 members of the gold medal-winning basketball team at the Sydney Paralympics were found to to qualify for the games.
The other cases are in table tennis, swimming and athletics.
Swimming: Irish representatives Julie Douglas (28.78) and Leonore Kellemer (28.90) were 19th and 21st respectively in the women's 50 metres butterfly to miss out on a place in the semi-finals at the European Short-Course Championships in Valencia yesterday.
Cycling: National road race champion David McCann has become the third Irish rider to join the professional ranks after finalising terms with the CCC Mat team for next season. The 27-year-old Atlanta Olympian, who was the leading French-based amateur rider last year, will line out as part of the 16-strong Polish team in 2001.
The trio of Irishmen in the professional ranks will be completed by Ciaran Power and Mark Scanlon.
