Cathal Dennehy’s feature this week is on in-form hurlder Sarah Lavin who broke Derval’ORourke’s national junior outdoor 100m Hurdles record twice last weekend. Cathal gives us a good insight into her character and her training to date. There’s a long way  to go before she can come close to matching

Welcome to round two of Thursday Talk with myself and Thomas Chamney. In the second podcast  we  talk to Mary Cullen about her rollercoaster career to date. The Irish indoor 3,000m record holder (8:43.74) from Sligo has suffered 14 stress fractures in her running career and also suffered personal tragedy

Laura Crowe has been confirmed for the ExxonMobil Bislett Games in the Oslo Diamond League in the 800m on Thursday the 13th of June and she believes it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. “When I got the message through that I  was in Oslo I didn’t  believe it,” said

It’s a Thomas Chamney Tuesday today and here he has an article with David Gillick on his plans for the season and his upcoming starring role on RTE’s Celebrity Master Chef. The World Championships are out of the question on the tv schedule for RTE so we will have to

It was an action packed weekend. Below is Jumping The Gun’s take and thoughts of the action Prefontaine: the start of Diamond League shining The Prefontaine meeting in Eugene, Oregon kick-started the Diamond league tour with some of the highlights being Mutaz Barshim of Qatar’s 2.40m leap in the high

It promises to be an exciting weekend of  athletics with Paul Robinson kicking it off  today looking for an A standard in a 1500m race in Marseille. Here is a link to the startlist: http://scomarseille.athle.com/asp.net/espaces.html/html.aspx?id=24754 Steven Colvert races over 200m in Geneva tomorrow and he has a target time of

Paul Robinson, Kildare’s new distance sensation, spoke to jumpingthegun.ie in the first podcast with co-anchors Feidhlim Kelly and Thomas Chamney. Robinson talks about his coaching and training as he eyes up a  World ‘A’ standard in Marseille tomorrow. We also discuss the recent goings on in Irish and World athletics.

I still think about Con Houlihan every morning when I wake up. It is morning – well, mid-morning – as I start to write this column. This used to be the customary start of our daily ritual of tea and toast and Sky Sports News on mute. Frank Greally introduced

“The pony express always comes through,” Con Houlihan would often say with a wry smile after we finished a newspaper column. I unwittingly joined the pony express in Martin Street in the Winter of 2007. I was 24 when I walked through the door of Con’s house for the first

Irish distance running has hit a few bum notes since the glorious ’80s. So can a classical musician who specialised in the French horn put the wind back in our endurance stars? And can a landmark move to professional coaching help build on the recent promise shown by Fionnuala Britton

Kenenisa Bekele’s star quality was able to pierce through a blustery crosswind at the Spar Great Ireland Run 10km in the Phoenix Park yesterday. The Ethiopian retained his title in 28:51 and now has his sights set on qualifying for the World Track and Field Championships in Moscow in August. 

The Irish women’s European Cross-Country winning team will be amongst the medal favourites in the 40th edition of the IAAF World Cross-Country Championships in snow-swept Bydgoszcz, Poland tomorrow. With Fionnuala Britton merging the gap to world-class level by the month, as evidenced by her fine European indoor bronze medal over

“I couldn’t leave that one go,” admitted senior boy’s winner Sean Tobin of his last chance at glory in Saturday’s Aviva All-Ireland Schools’ and Universities’ Cross Country Championships at University of Ulster, Jordanstown. Finishing second last year in an exciting duel with CBC Monkstown’s Kevin Dooney, the High School Clonmel

Four-time world cross country silver medallist Catherina McKiernan has urged the future distance running stars “to enjoy” the Aviva Irish Schools’ Cross Country Championships that take place tomorrow in the University of Ulster, Jordanstown if they are to succeed. McKiernan, who famously won the senior girls schools’ title in 1988

It was a case of “deja vu” for Fionnuala Britton and part of a childhood ambition achieved for Ciaran O’Lionaird as they led a successful Irish team homecoming from the European Indoor Championships in Gothenburg with their bronze medals in the 3,000 metres to a small but intimate crowd at