Getting set for Armagh International Road Races

THE Race is getting closer! Tonight (Thursday, February 12) there’ll be a stack of runners on the Mall and at the end of it all new champions of the 5k and 3k will have run themselves into the history books.

In all three senior events, the On International Men’s 5k, the On International Women’s 3k , and the Linwoods and XMiles Men’s Open 3k it’s certain that we’ll have a new winner, because no previous victor is here to defend their title!

In the Women’s 3k Belfastwoman Emily Haggard Kearney has a season’s best of 8.59 which makes her the fastest in the 150-strong field, and some 10 seconds clear of nearest rival , Bandon’s Fiona Everard, the reigning All-Ireland Senior Cross-country Champion .

But these stats will mean nothing to England’s Holly Weedall (9.11), nor to Scotland’s Stefanie Tucker on 9.12, while rising star Fanny Szalkai of Sweden buoyed up by a recent 9.13 performance will go into this race confident that she’ll be in the mix to contest the final furlong.

The first Men’s race, sponsored by On Running and Armagh Sports, but famed around the world as “the Armagh 5k” will bring to the Mall the fastest-ever 5k runner in the history of the event! Neither of the two most recent winners namely the European Steeplechase Champion Topi Raitanen, nor the USA’s Andrew Colley, reigning champion and recordholder here, came close to the current form of Newmills’ favourite son, Nick Griggs who last December clocked a magnificent 13.05 for the distance - which if repeated on the unforgiving Mall circuit on Thursday night would give him the record by a staggering 25 seconds!

Fellow Ulsterman and stablemate of Griggs in the Candour club, Callum Morgan (13.23) is best of the rest from the past 12 months, but if Sweden’s Emil Danielsson (13.25) or, Mullingar Harrier Cormac Dalton (13.26) or West Waterford’s Micheal Power (13.29) can repeat those performances, this contest will be something special!

And then there’s last year’s Swedish sensation Sebastian Lorstad who at sixteen nearly provided the shock of the season when he scorched to a world record for his age-group to take third place. To him reputations mean nothing, as he proved when taking the scalps of a host of seasoned performers in last year’s classic.

But, as reigning European Under-23 Cross-country Champion on top of everything else, Griggs must be the clear favourite, but favouritism makes its own demands and he will do well to ignore the hype, and concentrate on getting the job done in a contest which has the strongest field ever assembled in Armagh. Marathon-man Brendan Heaney is the only Armagh AC representative to make the cut this year, and he’ll be hoping for a personal best.

The Men’s 3k has 29 sub-9 minutes performers on the start-line making it extremely hard to call. World-class orienteer Ian Robertson (8.20) from New Zealand and Tri-athlete Russell White 8.45) from Dromore (8.45) will bring a new dimension to the race, but Dublin City Harriers’ Oran O’Hare and Glaslough’s John Hanley (both on 8.30) will quietly fancy their chances, while the Belgium Junior duo of Cas Scheldeman (8.27) and Wannes Van Uytven (8.45) will test the best of them. Lughaidh Mallon’s record of 8.27 could be in danger here.

The night of top-class racing begins with the eleven Juvenile races which usually raise the decibels to ear-splitting levels as great-grannies, great-grandas and all ranks below cheer the kids to the echo in their bid to get their school’s name the first to be engraved on the recently presented Armagh Credit Union Cups