ATHLETICS:There's still nothing to beat the Irish Schools Track and Field Championships to mark the start of the season proper, writes IAN O'RIORDAN

THAT GREAT white heat from the flaming nostrils of the sky can only mean one thing: it’s time to slip on the flip-flops, slice up some cold watermelon, and take the hood down on the old Alfa Romeo for the drive to Tullamore. Not forgetting the sunscreen and the shades.

There’s still nothing to beat the Irish Schools Track and Field Championships to mark the start of the season proper, and this year is no exception. Usain Bolt may be back on the circuit around Europe, and the Diamond League already promising world records, but for Ireland’s favourite athletics column, the summer doesn’t really get going until the annual day out in Tullamore.

If you don’t get a sense of what this sport is all about after nine hours of non-stop running, jumping and throwing, across the 106 events, then you might want to check your pulse. Even God in Heaven loves the Irish Schools. He must – because the weather in Tullamore on the first Saturday in June is always heavenly.

So too do Aviva, by the way – as the now proud supporters of schools athletics at a time when many sponsors are pulling back.

I hate to single out individuals on days like this, but two athletes I’m very excited to see running are Mark English and Siofra Cleirigh-Buttner. English is probably the most gifted young distance running talent in the country, and has already won the national senior indoor 800 metres title, in February, and set a national junior indoor record of 1:48.63. The 18-year-old from St Eunan’s, Letterkenny, looks to be in a class of his own in the senior boys 800 metres, so can afford to have both eyes on the clock, and the senior record of 1:51.1 set by Seán O’Neill in 1982.

Cleirigh-Buttner has already been in record-breaking form this season. Still only 15, she has already established herself as something of a schoolgirl phenomenon, and at the Leinster Schools last month, ran an astonishing 2:08.70 seconds in the intermediate girls 800m to shear four seconds off the 28-year-old record.

Her target this afternoon is the Irish Schools record of 2:10.08, set last year by Amy O’Donoghue of Villiers Limerick (who this time contests the senior girls race), and given the perfect conditions, that looks a formality for the youngster from Coláiste Íosagáin.

This time last year Cleirigh-Buttner ran a junior girls 1,500m record of 4:28.10, seemingly without breaking sweat, and that looked like being the highlight of the day. Then out came Ciara Mageean and as if on cue, produced a similar gun-to-tape victory to knock 11 seconds off the senior girls 1,500m record, running 4:19.00.

That marked Mageean’s last race at schools’ level, and she then underlined her enormous potential with her silver medal run over 1,500m at the World Junior Championships in Moncton, Canada, last July.

I’ve said it before, but of the 24 distance running medals won at those World Juniors, 23 went to African nations – Mageean being the exception. And her time of 4:09.51 not only improved the Irish junior record but also ended up the fastest Irish senior time of 2010.

Yet it hasn’t been the smoothest of transitions from schoolgirl to senior grade – even though strictly speaking Mageean is still a junior. She was outside her own medal ambitions at the European Junior Cross Country last December, then had an ultimately disappointing indoor season, finishing third in the senior 1,500m in Belfast. An Achilles injury added further concern about her form.

However, again as if on cue, Mageean will be back in Tullamore this afternoon to compete in the Irish Milers Club 800m (a somewhat contentious addition to the day’s events). This will be the first outdoor race of the summer for the Down athlete, still only 19, and an important one too, as she looks to regain her best form ahead of the European Junior Championships in Tallinn at the end of July – after which Mageean officially becomes a senior athlete.

There are some other important summer debuts away from Tullamore this weekend, starting at the famous Bislett Stadium in Oslo, Norway – which this afternoon hosts the European Cup 10,000m. This is effectively the chance to achieve a World or Olympic qualifying time, as the 10,000m is rarely run on the circuit anymore, and that’s exactly what Mary Cullen has in mind when she runs the women’s race.

Cullen, as we all know, has endured a horrendous run of injuries and other setbacks – including a broken collarbone after a bike accident – and her long hard road back to the London Olympics starts here.

With a best of 32:21.42, Cullen is capable of dipping inside the B-standard for the World Championships in Daegu at the end of the summer, of 32:00-flat, and may not be too far off the A-standard of 31:45.20 either.

Joe Sweeney also goes in the men’s race looking to improve his best of 30:49.30, but with even the B-standard for Daegu a hectic 28:00 he won’t be overly disappointed if he doesn’t qualify this time.

However perhaps the most interesting and indeed telling debut of the weekend takes place on the other side of the Atlantic, in Clermont, Florida. Not to be confused with Clermont, Indiana, this small town 22 miles west of Orlando has been David Gillick’s home since last November, and by all accounts a wonderful place to train. There aren’t many distractions in Orlando – unless of course you count the original Walt Disney World, built in 1965 – and Gillick has been training under the watchful eye of Lance Brauman, coach to US sprint champion Tyson Gay, amongst others, and a former resident of Texarkana Federal Correctional Institution in Texas.

Without going into the details of that, Brauman is actually a highly trusted and respected coach, and Gillick has been in good company over the winter. He runs his first 400m of the year this evening at the “Last Chance” meeting at the National Training Centre in Clermont, before flying up to New York next weekend for the Diamond League.

Obviously the “Last Chance” is a bit of a misnomer here: it’s staged as the last chance for Americans to qualify for their national championships, but it’s the first chance for Gillick to demonstrate just how productive his winter was in the Sunshine State. The plan was actually to give Gillick a call this week, to check up on his progress, but I know he’s trying to keep a lower profile this summer, or at least let his running do more of the talking. (He hasn’t updated his blog since last October).

Because this is a big summer for Gillick. He turns 28 next month, and although Michael Johnson was 32 when he ran his world record of 43.18, time is running out for Gillick to make that big lasting impression on the outdoor stage. It’s two years now since he made the World Championship final, and set his Irish record of 44.77, and there’s no denying that finishing fifth at the European Championships last summer – albeit it .05 of a second away from a medal – was a disappointment.

Summer days like this never last, and it won’t be long until we’re feeling the great white heat of Daegu. Time to get the shades on, indeed.