Almost a year to the day from when it was originally scheduled to take place, Dublin will host the European Cross Country Championships on Sunday at the Sport Ireland Campus with live coverage of all seven races on RTÉ television.
It could be worth the wait for the home fans, with Irish medal hopes in several races, but the crowd will be electrified either way by the appearance in Ireland of one of the biggest stars of world athletics.
Jakob Ingebrigsten is the undisputed middle distance king after his domination of the Olympic 1500 metres final in Tokyo in August when he set a new Olympic record.
Since that commanding performance the Norwegian celebrated his 21st birthday in September and here on Sunday we'll see him stretch to 10000 metres on cross country terrain in west Dublin, which will be a much different prospect than a four-lap Olympic final.
However Ingebrigsten has shown his cross country credentials before in winning the European junior race four consecutive times, while he’s also the reigning European 5000-metre champion, a title he won as a 17-year-old.
He’s just a modern day athletic phenomenon.
Ireland may not have a strong medal challenge in that senior men's race, but almost a year to the day from when it was originally scheduled to take place, there are Irish hopes in other events like the junior men's race, where Ireland’s own young phenomenon Nick Griggs from Tyrone, already a European U20 champion on the track, will be favoured to contend at just 16.
Twice former women's gold medallist Fionnuala McCormack ran her fastest ever marathon only last Sunday and runs in a record 17th European Cross Country and she leads a strong looking Irish women's team, while Sarah Healy and Darragh McElhinney in the U23 races and the Irish Mixed relay team will all be harbouring hopes of a podium finish.
Follow the European Cross-Country Championships live on RTÉ2 and the RTÉ Player this Sunday from 9.30am.
