Athletics Ireland has confirmed a seven-strong team for the inaugural European Running Championships which take place on April 12th and 13th in Brussels and Leuven in Belgium.
The team will be headlined by Irish 10,000m, 10k (road) and half marathon record holder Efrem Gidey (Clonliffe Harriers AC) who has been in breathtaking form in recent weeks. Gidey will race over the half marathon distance on the back of breaking the longstanding national senior 10,000m record that had been held by Alistair Cragg since 2007 just last weekend, by clocking 27:26.95 in California.
Gidey set a new Irish half marathon record of 60:51 in Copenhagen last September which has since been equalled by Hiko Tonosa.
Ann-Marie McGlynn (Letterkenny AC) will race in the Women’s Half Marathon. The 45-year-old has won the last two national senior marathon titles and fine-tuned her preparations for these championships by clocking 33:07 to win silver at the recent National 10k Championships in Dunboyne.
Three Irish men and two Irish women will race over 10k.
Sean Tobin (Clonmel AC), Keelan Kilrehill (Moy Valley AC) and Cormac Dalton (Mullingar Harriers AC) will be aiming for high finishing positions in the men’s event. All three athletes represented Ireland at last December’s European Cross Country Championships in Antalya.
Tobin won the national senior indoor 3,000m title in February, Kilrehill clocked a personal best of 28:50 for 10k in Valencia in January, while Dalton ran a time of 28:33.92 for 10,000m in California last weekend.
Niamh Allen (Leevale AC) and Emily Haggard-Kearney (North Belfast Harriers) will don the green singlet again, also racing over 10k.
Allen placed 11th in her Irish senior debut at the European Cross Country Championships last year and won the national 10k title in Dunboyne last month in 31:44, the fastest ever time recorded for the distance by a female Irish athlete on home soil.
Haggard-Kearney finished 64th in the half marathon at the European Athletics Championships in Rome last summer and will be hoping for another strong performance.
James Gormley (Carmen Runners) and Shona Heaslip (An Riocht AC) had been initially selected but have since withdrawn.
Commenting upon the announcement of the Irish team, Athletics Ireland High Performance Endurance Coordinator Mark Kenneally said:
“We are looking forward to participating in the inaugural European Running Championships. It is a unique event with the combination of mass participation and championship. We feel we travel with strong individuals and teams, and that we can continue our recent history of being competitive at European level in the distances.
“Many of the athletes selected have competed in, and experienced success in recent Cross Country and track championships and are really looking forward to testing themselves on the road. The timing of the event means that it can simultaneously be a focused target as well as a springboard into the summer track season for many of the athletes,” he added.
