Irish Olympic Marathon Runners set for Olympic Selection on May 23rd

Ireland’s top marathon runners will find out about Olympic selection on Monday next, May 23rd.

The road to Rio, which began for marathon runners as far back as January 2015, when the selection criteria was announced, is due to come to a conclusion with the squad announcements, subject to ratification by the Olympic Council of Ireland. It will also include the race walking selections, along with the Half marathon for the European Athletics Championships, in Amsterdam, next July.

Marathon running has been on an upward curve since the last Olympic cycle, with over 15 athletes securing qualifying times. This will lead to some disappointed athletes, but High Performance Director Kevin Ankrom sees this as a good problem to have.

“There will always be some disappointed athletes but it’s really positive to have so many athletes achieve qualifying standards as we continue to raise the standard of distance running in the country,” said Ankrom.

The five-person panel will meet on Monday the 23rd of May at 15:00. The panel will select 3 males along with 2 reserves, and 3 females plus 2 reserves (6 total athletes to be nominated to the Olympic Council of Ireland). The male/female reserves (4) are nominated in case of injury or illness. Athletes will have 24 hours to make appeals, with hearings concluded by the end of the working week May 27th.

Selected athletes, and reserves, will have until July 11 to continue to show form and fitness. If there is a situation where injury or illness occurs to any of the selected athletes, a reserve athlete can be added to the team to replace the injured athlete, up to the 11th of July.

After the 11th of July (and when the full Olympic Games team is selected) no further changes can be made to the marathon entry.  For clarity, and as an example in this situation, if athlete “X” is selected and in June athlete “X” is injured, and remains unable to show form and fitness prior to July 11th, then a reserve can be replaced or nominated to the Olympic Council of Ireland when the overall team is selected. After the final team has been nominated on 11th of July, no further reserves will be entered, as this is the Olympic Games deadline for countries to enter teams.

Selection Criteria for the Olympic Games Marathon

After the selections have been made on Monday, Athletics Ireland expects to contact athletes, between 17:00 and 20:00, to confirm the 6 selected and 4 reserve (10) athletes, after which Athletics Ireland will post a media release on its websites with the names of the selected athletes.

Irish Marathon Qualifiers

The rankings are in order of overall worldwide ranking.  Only the top three athletes have been allocated a ranking

Irish Marathon Qualifiers - Women

RankNamePerformance VenueDate
81Lizzie Lee02:32:51Berlin (GER)27.09.2015
83Fionnuala McCormack02:33:15Chicago IL (USA)11.10.2015
119Breege Connolly02:37:29London (GBR)26.04.2015
 Gladys Ganiel O'Neill02:38:53Sevilla (ESP)21.02.2016
 Barbara Sanchez02:39:49Sevilla (ESP)21.02.2016
 Claire McCarthy02:42:04Praha (CZE)08.05.2016
 Caitriona Jennings02:44:33Rotterdam (NED)10.04.2016

Irish Marathon Qualifiers - Men

RankNamePerformance VenueDate
91Kevin Seaward02:14:52Berlin (GER)27.09.2015
97Mick Clohisey02:15:11Sevilla (ESP)21.02.2016
99Sergiu Ciobanu02:15:14Berlin (GER)27.09.2015
 Paul Pollock02:15:38Berlin (GER)27.09.2015
 Martin Fagan02:16:09Zurich (SUI)19.04.2015
 Gary Thornton02:17:19Berlin (GER)27.09.2015
 Sean Hehir02:17:20London (GBR)24.04.2016
 Thomas Frazer02:17:45Rotterdam (NED)12.04.2015
 Mark Kirwan02:19:30Berlin (GER)27.09.2015
 Mark Hanrahan02:19:52Rotterdam (NED)10.04.2016

Worldwide  Olympic Qualifiers Listing - All Events