SQUASH: A capacity crowd watched as 41-year-old as Dubliner Derek Ryan was presented with a world record 200th cap at the Men’s World Team Squash Championship in Paderborn, Germany.
Ryan, one of Irish sport’s most popular figures, played at his first world team championship in 1989. In a long career as a professional player, he reached No 7 on the world rankings before retiring from the World Tour even years ago to become a physiotherapist.
Although he spoke about ceding his place to younger players when he turned 40, Ryan has had an outstanding world championships.
After the presentation, he made it three victories from three matches played when he beat Javier Castilla Conde in Ireland’s defeat of Columbia in the play-off stages of the tournament.
Against Germany in Ireland’s first pool game, Ryan had sensationally beaten pro player Jens Schoor. Playing Spain, he again picked up Ireland’s only point when he beat Alejandro Garbi Caro.
Yet he works full time and trains no more than any club player.
“I played in the Europeans in April, but not much since. My saving grace has been two intense 45-minute workouts a week when a group of us meet up at 6am.”
Making up the Irish team were Arthur Gaskin, Steve Richardson and Conor O’Hare.
TRIATHLON: Bjorn Luddick hopes to consolidate his place at the top of the National Triathlon Series table with victory at tomorrow’s Gatorade Dublin Triathlon in the Phoenix Park.
Luddick, winner of both Try Athy and the Hook or by Crook sprint triathlon, takes on a strong field that includes Shane Scully, Andrew Kavanagh, Kevin Keane and Craig Longmore, all of them winners at other triathlons this season.
In the women’s race, sisters Amy and Joyce Wolfe, fresh from the Sprint World Championships in Lausanne, lead the entry.
They take on a 1500m swim in the Liffey, a 40km bike around the Phoenix Park and a 10km off-road run, also in the park. Also scheduled is a shorter novice event. Close to a 1,000 triathletes have entered the biggest triathlon in the Dublin area.
POOL: Although he won a bronze medal at the European Wheelchair Pool Championships earlier this year, Dubliner Fred Dinsmore faces a tough draw at the World Championships in Poland next week.
“I was lucky to win that medal, especially since it was in 8-ball,” says Dinsmore, a 9-ball specialist who won his first world title in 2000.
In Poland, he faces three times world champion Henrik Larsson fro Sweden, his old mate Kurt Deklerck from Belgium and the dangerous Jouni Tahti from Finland. At the Europeans, Dinsmore narrowly lost to Tahti in the 9-ball quarter-finals.
Dinsmore, a member of Celbridge Snooker Club, is supported by Ger Dunphy Entertainment and Pradator Cues.
ROWING: Olympic qualification is at stake for two Irish boats at next week’s World Rowing Championships in Bled, Slovenia. Another boat is seeking Paralympic qualification.
Competing in the Olympic classes are the lightweight double scull of Claire Lambe and Siobhan McCrohan and the openweight women’s double scull of Sanita Puspure and Lisa Dilleen.
Lambe and McCrohan, fourth at last year’s European championships, take on an entry of 26 boats, with eight Olympic places on offer. In openweight women’s double scull, eight places are also on offer for the new look Irish partnership. Galway woman Dilleen, fourth in the 2009 World Junior Rowing Championships, has paired up with Puspure, a former Latvian international. The pair finished fifth at the opening World Cup in Munich.
For the Irish mixed coxed four crew in the legs, trunk, and arms (LTA) category, there are again eight 2012 Paralympics places on offer. After finishing fifth at last year’s World Rowing Championships, the Irish crew has a good chance of making it.
Also competing is a men’s lightweight quadruple scull and Sarah Dolan, a 21-year old Trinity college engineering student, in the women’s lightweight single scull.
CANOEING: Salmon Leap’s Jenny Egan produced a best ever result for Ireland when she finished 18th overall in the K1 500m at the Canoe Slalom World Championships in Szeged in Hungary. In the B final, the 24-year old Kildare paddler finished ninth in a new Irish record of 1 minute 52.768 seconds.
Egan also finished 15th in the K1 5000m and competing in the 200m heats and semi-finals.
She now has an outside chance of making next year’s Olympics when the final places are allotted after next year’s European and World Championships.
Neil Fleming of Celbridge, back racing after a long battle with injury, finished fifth in the B Final of the men’s K1 500m, a non-Olympic event for men, and fifth in the C Final of the K1 1,000m.
No comments yet.