Five Irish athletes ran qualifying times for next year’s Rio Olympics at the Berlin Marathon on Sunday.
Kevin Seaward came in first of the Irish at 2:14:52. The next home was Sergiu Ciobanu in 2:15:14.
Then there was Michael Clohisey in a time of 2:15:35, three seconds ahead of Paul Pollock.
The men's Olympic marathon qualifying time is 2:17:00 and Athletics Ireland now has a selection headache as they can only send three athletes.
Lizzie Lee of Leevale finished in 2:32:51, comfortably inside the women's qualifying time of 2:42:00
Berlin is known as the fastest marathon in the world so it was an ideal opportunity to run the qualifying time.
Martin Fagan was the only Irish man to run inside the qualifying time in the current Olympic cycle, though he has since retired from the sport.
There are several other races that Irish athletes will be targeting to run under the 2:17:00 cut-off, with the likes of Sean Hehir, Gary Thornton and Mark Hanrahan all holding out hopes of making the plane to Rio.
Kenyan favourite Eliud Kipchoge shrugged off mid-race footwear problems to win the Berlin marathon on Sunday with a personal best time of 2:04:01, but missed out on a world record by more than a minute.
The in-form 30-year-old, a winner in London in April, proved a master of the flat, inner-city course.
He won the race even though his insoles slipped out of his shoes early in the race, winning ahead of fellow Kenyan Eliud Kiptanui and Ethiopia's Feyisa Lilesa.
"At some point they started coming out but I had no time to remove them," Kipchoge told reporters.
"But when you run without soles there is a lot of impact. There was a lot of pain with every step."
"The world record was really my aim but it was not my day for it," he said. "But I ran a personal best and I am happy and I will come back next year for it."
Fellow Kenyan Gladys Cherono clocked 2:19:25, winning the women's race ahead of Ethiopians Aberu Kebede and Meseret Hailu.
Seaward is a training partner of Pollock, who trains and runs alongside his job as a doctor in Belfast.
Clohisey is running without support of any Irish Sports Council funding while Ciobanu now represents Ireland having moved from Moldova ten years ago.
