ATHLETICS: For the past four days the Odyssey Arena in Belfast has been gradually transformed into the finest indoor running facility ever seen in the country, and this weekend several of Ireland's best athletes hope it will help them secure qualifying times for next month's World Indoor Championships in Birmingham.
Clearly Athletics Ireland have made a wise decision in moving this year's National Indoor Championships from its traditional if a little out-dated home in Nenagh.
The event promises to be the most competitive and best attended in several years, with the sprint finals in particular likely to produce some additions to the Irish team for Birmingham.
In the men's 200 metres, one of Sunday's concluding finals, Gary Ryan hopes to book his place on the Irish team. Last weekend Ryan took the Scottish Indoor title in 21.16 seconds, just .01 outside the world standard, and with Paul Brizzell and Paul McKee for opposition he is assured of a quality race.
Brizzell has already achieved the qualifying time, as has McKee over the 400 metres.
On the women's side, Emily Maher is looking to join Ciara Sheehy as a qualifier in the 200 metres Maher clocked 24.57 seconds in Cardiff last weekend, but needs to run 23.79 to secure her place in Birmingham. Again the promise of a close race is sure to help her quest.
Surprisingly, there are so far no Irish qualifiers for Birmingham in the middle distances.
Maria Lynch hopes to change that by running inside the four minutes 17 seconds over 1,500 metres, and local athlete Gareth Turnbull is also confident he can produce the necessary time over 3,000 metres in tomorrow's opening session.
Also in tomorrow's schedule is the women's 3,000 metres walk. Though not a world championship event, Gillian O'Sullivan has targeted the race in an effort to improve the world best performance of 11:44.0.
Karen Shinkins, last year's European Indoor bronze medallist over 400 metres, is still training in the US but hopes nonetheless to gain selection for Birmingham.
Sinead Delahunty-Evans has however, returned from her US base to compete over 3,000 metres.
