Day 5 Berlin

Wednesday morning . A morning off, so what do you do on a rarity like this? Of course you awaken early join the group as they breakfast, deal with a few guest passes, take a few calls re:media and sit down with Olive for a short period to discuss the impact her medal will have on her, her ability to deal with this and remain a serious world class athlete. We rattle around with that for a while and she is off out the door to train. Met with Robert Heffernan at breakfast, he wanted to spill out his personal thoughts on his disappointment but I stoped him, agreed to sit down later in the week. Deirdre Ryan is annoyed with me, I would imagine as I have not engaged with her at all after her failure in the high jump. I will leave her like that for a few days and then engage.

Had a coffee in the foyer and we were joined by Jessica Ennis, a lovely girl, really down to earth, delightful, great to see an uncomplicated athlete rise to the absolute pinnacle of the sport. Bumped into Paula Radcliffe in restaurant, so yes the answer would seem to be, she is going to have a lash at the marathon having won a half marathon in New york at the wekend. So the scene is set, I am on the road at 3-10 to track with David and we begin all over again.

Back after an exciting evening for the sport. Watched as Derval came through in semi at 12-73 after David Gillick drove a world class performance to 44-88 to find himself in the final on Friday. The relief, the joy was there for everyone to see as he returned to the warm up area to an enthusiastic response from the Irish contingent. The response from back at home was immediate it would seem everyone was tuned in to these three athletes this particular time and the BBC were doing the job we would expect RTE to do, namely cover the event and carry interviews. Paul was next up, I had expected him to make top four, it wasn't to be as he returned 20.48 for 6th, not enough. He would in fact have needed a new Irish record of 20.28 to make it and that wasn't there. I didn't hang around, headed to technical information centre to get Alistair's start list for tomorrow and was on my way back to the warm up area when I met Sean Cahill on his way to watch the hurdles final. Joined him but could never have imagined the outcome to be as it was to turn out. In lane 1 she is out like a gazelle and drives with an enormous belief over 10 hurdles to 4th, a new Irish record 12-67, a tremendous result and remembering she was the only European in the final won by a Jamaican. It was 1140 pm before myself, her coach Sean was to meet up with her, pretty much the stadium abandoned as she was in dope control. Caught a taxi, dropped Sean and Derval off. Coming up to midnight at McDonalds near the hotel and here I am catching up .

The general consenses is that this was a great return for Irish athletics. Somewhere in the middle of all this a further boxing result came in from Jason Quigley, a victory at 4-3 from an unrelated European championship elsewhere in Berlin and he fights in semi v Georgia tomorrow. There are so many positive young people out there as instanced in these results. It has to be emphasised that support for high performance and a return on same takes many many years . One wonders will we pull a large element of this support in these recessionary times, it would be such a disaster for this sport and sport in general if that were to happen . The core of and the fabric of society is underpinned by volunteers supporting and being enthused by sport leaving Ireland with an opportunity to join in international competition at this level the entire country buys into the exploits and are enthusiatic hence the need to continue to support same . London is just a few short years away and the European champs are in Barcelona in 2010.

Irish people were proud tonight and expressed that in their messages to us here in Berlin. It's great when you experience days like this, days when your sport grabs the headlines and you stay on the wave as long as is possible. Monday will come we will head home the headlines will return to gaelic football and we will look back and assess a period of competition that until now has been class.

And so the journey continues, Alister in 5k, Eileen in hammer and Thomas first up in the 800m is the interest tomorrow Thursday. Beyond the confines and the glamour of Berlin I must take a few minutes /hours to prepare the details for this years schools cross country at Finn Valley to have it ready to go when schools return. I leave you with a final question, it's not will Usain Bolt win the 200m tomorrow but will he break his own world record? My tuppenceworth is he will not, yes he will win, but he is beginning to look I nearly said human what I mean is tired . Let's see .

Patsy mc Gonagle
Team Manager
Berlin 2009

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