AMY Foster has been preselected on the Irish team for the European Indoor Athletics Championships in Gothenburg in a fortnight but Stephen Scullion will have to wait until Sunday to see if he has joined her.
Amy is one of a group of eight athletes named yesterday. The many times Northern Ireland champion sprinter booked her place in the 60 metres by running 7.33, just 300ths outside Anna Boyle’s Northern Ireland record in the heats of the AAI Championships.
She was then controversially disqualified in the final for an apparent false start that was not obvious to the observer but she had already run the qualifying time.
Amy is an experienced competitor who has performed in both Commonwealth and European Outdoor Championships. She will certainly hope to reach the semi finals in Sweden and perhaps progress even further.
Stephen Scullion would normally have expected to be selected at 3,000m at his superb 7:58.11 in the British Grand Prix when he moved up steadily to finish seventh in the race won by double Olympic champion Mo Farah.
The problem is that four athletes have achieved the eight minutes qualifying standard. Ciaran O’Lionaird and David McCarthy have been preselected leaving the last spot between Northern Ireland Cross Country champion Scullion and John Travers of Donore the AAI winner at the weekend. Scullion does have a marginally faster time.
The rest of the team is former World champion Derval O’Rourke in hurdles, record breakers Ciara Everard at 800 and Tori Penna pole vault, European leader Brian Gregan at 400 and double Euro Cross Country champion Fionnuala Britton in the 3,000.
Kevin Ankron Ireland’s High Performance Director commented: “We definitely have the opportunity to win medals particularly with Brian Gregan, Derval O’Rourke, Ciaran O’Lionaird and Fionnuala Britton. I am confident that the selected team for the Euro Indoors will be very competitive.”
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