Deirdre Ryan of Dundrum South Dublin AC has jumped 1.90m in the High Jump at the French National Indoor Championships today and is hopeful that she will gain selection for the forthcoming World Indoor Championship. Ryan had already achieved the qualification standard for the World Indoors Championships when setting an Irish Indoor record of 1.93m in Leverkusen, Germany last year. The final team will be announced by Athletics Ireland tomorrow.

Meanwhile at the Aviva England Athletics Underage Indoor Championships in Birmingham there was some fine performances by Ireland’s emerging athletes. Ciara Mageean (City of Lisburn AC) has again broken her own Irish Junior Indoor record to win the U20 800m in 2:07.79 minutes. This improved on the  2.07.82 minutes she ran when winning the Senior Indoor Championships in Belfast earlier in the month. There was also wins for Paul Robinson in the U20 1500m in 3:52.73 minutes with Darren McBreaty finishing second in 3.53.32.  Andrew Monaghan took the U17 1500m title in a championships best performance of 3.57.67 minutes. Katie Kirk won the U17 300m in 39.20 seconds.