The BUPA Ireland Cork City Sports and the National Junior and U-23 Championships take place in Ireland this weekend. The Cork City Sports meeting takes place on Saturday, 1st July at the Mardyke Arena at UCC Sports Complex. The National Junior and U-23 Championships will be held on Sunday, 2nd July in Tullamore, Co Offaly.

Derval O'Rourke, the newly crowed IAAF World Indoor 60m Hurdles Gold Medallist will make her 2006 debut in the 100m hurdles event at 4.05 pm.

David Gillick, the reigning European Indoor 400m Champion will be competing against Australia's Clinton Hill who ran 45.06 at the Norwich Union meeting on 11th June. Gillick has already run 45.80 a new personal best this season along with anchoring Ireland's winning 4 x 400m relay at the European Cup meet in Slovakia.

Irish Olympian and current European Indoor 3,000m Champion Alistair Cragg will make his Cork debut in talent-laden 3k race. Craig Mottram, Bronze Medallist in the 5,000m at last year's World Championships; Daniel Lincoln, Cragg's training partner and fellow Arkansas graduate, who won the USA National 3,000m steeplechase title last weekend will be also be in the mix. Whilst Cragg is making his debut, Mark Carroll may be running his last Cork City Sports event before he focuses on road racing.

The women's 3,000 metres also promises to be a competitive affair. Carroll's wife, Amy Rudolph, fresh off her 10k win at the USA National Championships will face a trio of Irish challengers in Jolene Byrne, Maria McCambridge and Mary Cullen, the 2006 NCAA 5k champion.

In addition to the honour of winning a National Junior title, many athletes will be in the hunt for a qualifier to the 2006 IAAF World Junior Championships in Beijing, China from 15th - 20th August. The National Junior and U-23 Championships serve a window into the future of Irish athletics.

The meet is always full of surprises along with a stage for the favourites to display their talents. Ferrybank's Kelly Proper (long jump) and Kalyn Sheehan (400m hurdles), Amy Foster (200m) and Rose-Anne Galligan (1,500m) already have qualifying times.

Jason Smyth will be hoping for a clam day to get some legal wind times on is running resume. The junior men's middle-distance races will be promising with Dáire Bermingham, David Campbell, Conor Murphy, Steven Morrow, Stephen Scullion, Eoin Healy and Brendan O'Neill competing in the 800 and 1,500-metre events.

Joanne Cuddihy should dominate the 200 and 400-metre events in the U-23 portion of the meet.

Both the men and women's U-23 middle distance races will provide top competitions with rivals that have been racing each other for years on end. The top women runners are Linda Byrne, Fionnuala Britton and Orla Drum. The men's side includes reigning European Junior 1,500m Champion Colin Costello, Mark Christie, Joseph Sweeney, Mick Clohissey and Richard Corcoran.