Nordic hurdlers enter Irish Indoor Championships

Swedish and Norwegian athletes are getting ready to take on the world in the Irish Indoor Championships in Belfast. In the hurdles competition, Jenny Kallur from Sweden and Christina Vukicevic from Norway will be racing against the World Indoor Champion, Derval O’Rourke who will be defending her title on home turf.

Jenny Kallur’s twin sister Susanna currently holds the title of European Hurdles Champion. Susanna ranked second in the world in 2007 but Jenny is not far behind her sister. She took a silver medal behind Susanna at the Madrid European Indoor Championships in 2005 in Madrid. Jenny also made it to the finals in the Helsinki World Championships in 2005.

O’Rourke has faced Jenny in the past and defeated her. In 2006 O’Rourke beat Jenny in the European Outdoors to win a silver medal. In this competition, O’Rourke has the edge of running in her home country and in the same stadium that she set a new Irish record during the championships two years ago.

Christina Vukicevic is Kallur’s 20-year-old training partner. Vukicevic won silver at the World Outdoor Junior championship in Beijing in 2006, coming only a hundredth of a second behind the gold medal finisher.

All the hurdlers will be using the upcoming competition in order to prepare for the World Indoors in March which will be held in Valencia, Spain.

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