Ghanaian-Born sets new Irish record

Ghanaian-born triple jumper Samuel Okantey has demonstrated what a good capture he could be for Irish athletics by producing a world-class performance in the US over the weekend.

Okantey, who has transferred allegiance from his native country to Ireland, produced a leap of 17.11m metres - which was almost a metre beyond the previous Irish record.

The 28-year-old, whose personal best when he was representing Ghana was an outdoor 17.19m, set the mark at a meeting in Maryland.

Okantey's jump puts him as the world leader at this early stage of the indoor season although the mark is certain to be bettered with several major meetings coming up.

The previous Irish record was 16.27m which was set in 1978 by Colm Cronin.

Overhanging TV camera

Ballymena & Antrim sprinter Paul Brizzel leads the 200m world indoor rankings in this early part of the season after producing a clocking of 21.43 in Manchester on 28 December.

Brizzel had a series of misfortunes in 2002.

He was controversially left out of the Northern Ireland Commonwealth Games team and then had to duck out of the way of an overhanging TV camera during his European Championship heat.

Brizzel was forced to do a solo 200 metres run but failed to get the necessary time to make the second round.