Karen Shinkins illustrated her impressive return to form with a national 400 metres indoor record of 52.85 seconds in yesterday's international meeting at Athens.

In one of her last appearances before travelling to Ghent for the European Indoor Championships at the end of the month, Shinkins earned the approval of the crowd in taking three-fifths of a second off her old record.

It was one of her most convincing runs since making the breakthrough in major international competition and the testimony to its quality was quickly forthcoming when former Olympic champion Dion Hemmings of Jamaica was only fractionally faster in winning another of the three 400 metres races on the programme.

Shinkins, a member of the squad which competed in the World Championships at Seville last August, will now run in the Irish championships at Nenagh next Sunday before launching her European title challenge.

Mark Carroll, another athlete headed for Nenagh, made it a doubly successful day for the Irish in Athens with an emphatic success in the 3,000 metres race.

Showing no ill-effects from his win in the Wanamaker Mile in New York at the weekend, Carroll demoralised his opposition by accelerating clear at the start of the last lap to win in a time of seven minutes 46.72 seconds.

Up to that point, the Italian Gennaro de Napoli and Kenya's Luc Koskie had both looked dangerous but neither could go with the Irishman when he injected extra pace into the race.