Ireland becoming a sprinting nation?

stepperupper

Seems that way to me. But is it really a bad thing? Sure we've done well at distance events in the past but the fact that a lot of the sprinting records are new would lead me to believe that if the trend continues we should be able to compete at an international level within the next few years. A few could be 5 could be 50 though. I think the only event still wide open for athletes of all races and nationalities are the hurdles and the 800m. Your thoughts?

thirtyfoot

stepperupper wrote:

Seems that way to me. But is it really a bad thing? Sure we've done well at distance events in the past but the fact that a lot of the sprinting records are new would lead me to believe that if the trend continues we should be able to compete at an international level within the next few years. A few could be 5 could be 50 though. I think the only event still wide open for athletes of all races and nationalities are the hurdles and the 800m. Your thoughts?

I wouldn't say we are becoming a sprint nation, we are just catching up and our sprinters are now at the same level as our middle distance. Without looking at the stats, I'd say we probably still have more depth in the middle distance. If you look at the Europa Cup each year, our sprinters and middle distance athletes fair very well and even the women in the 2nd tier last year would be top 4 without the field events. Its field events where we are weak, apart from Deirdre Ryan or Adrian Dwyer, we have nobody coming through. The mens Pole Vault and Triple Jump are worse then the best women in the world - not the Irish athletes fault just a bad state of affairs for the events in Ireland.

Our middle distance athletes are still good but compared to the golden age of Coughlan, O' Sullivan, O' Mara, they look average. The Brits are the same, its hard to compare to Coe, Ovett & Cram.

Athletics is a unique sport. To run a club to its max potential and get the most out of young athletes you would need to have a full compliment of coaches - maybe 7 or 8 different coaches for all the disciplines, sprints, middle distance, vertical jumps , horizontal jumps, throws etc etc. In many areas in Ireland, its hard enough to get 1 coach to commit. Maybe Ireland should focus on certain events, maybe thats what we are doing already?

As regards only hurdles and 800's being open to all races/nationalities, I think a topic like that was discussed here before, but I believe if the coaching is very good from an early age, then an Irish athlete could excel at any event. The Swedes are a great example, great coaches mean great athletes. Carolina Kluft from 12 onwards was coached correctly, nothing crazy, 2-3 days a week. She mastered all the technical events over the years going to different event coaches, in a very fun way, not like a 4 year old tennis prodigy. Each year as she got older and stronger, the intensity increased and when she was a junior she was technically adept at many events, still loving the sport, and able to concentrate on getting stronger, faster and just modifying and tweaking her technique. It helps her being an amazing athlete but I think that model is a good one.

This has turned into a meandering rant, but athletics is one of the toughest sports out there, like swimming, rowing or cycling. Paul Griffen, one of the Irish rowers said rowing (and I'd add any individual sports) are the toughest mental sports as its up to you to say when the pain stops, its like being a masochist. In other sports you have no choice when the pian comes from the hit or the tackle, while in rowing its a self-inflicted pain, at any stage you can say stop. As Derval O' Rourke says athletics is a tough sport and if you don't love it and love what you are doing, it'll soon find you out.

DaveH

I dont agree with that Just to name a few middle distance runners

Martin Fagan, Danny Darcy, Colin Costello. The mens U/23 team were 7 points off the Bronze in the European's. There was also the Junior team that won silver in the European's in 2004. Theres a good level of middle distance Irish runners. Hanranan, Christie, Clahessy, Kirwan, Joe Sweeney, the three named above, Thomas Chamney, David Campbell, James Nolan Liam Reale, Gary Murray, Vinny Mulvey. You can add Alister Cragg to the list. Finnoula Britton in the women's, who isnt getting anything near the coverage she deserves. Theres also Aoife Byrne, Linda Byrne(DSD) another to watch.
We are still strong in middle distance. Obivously not as strong as we were 20 years ago with Coughlan, Tracey, O'Sullivan, etc...but thats not just an irish problem thats a European problem.

If you want to look deeper late 70's early 80's there was 10 irish sub 2.18 marathon runners, now we have no one who clocks under 2.20.
Were catching up it will be a long battle though.

As for Tingle's comments "to run a club to its potentail you need 7 or 8 coaches"
This is very true, unfortunately there is another point. A member of Clonliffee Harriers pointed this out to me, that they have an advantage since they have a stadium. This means that field eventers in particular make there way to clonliffe.
A member of AAI recently said a "club without a sprints coach, throws coach, middle distance coach, jumps coach, isnt a club" unfortunately that counts about 95% of the clubs in the country out. I think we need slightly more focus on field events, the standard is pretty low in the hammer etc. Then again were not helped by facalities(sp). The hammer cage in Santry is broken(as far as I know), so instead of fixing it, they just dont use it.

Anyhow rambling there, but to the orignal point, I agree with tingle...we have more depth in middle distance than in sprinting.

pjbrady1

Agree with the comment that Rowing and running are the toughest sports. There is only one way to win a cross country race, and that is to inflict mental and physical pain on yourself to such a degree that you are drained from your neck to your ankles. No other sports have that level of pain.
A ten year old kid could beatup a cross country runner when they cross the finish line they would be so tired. In secondary school I used to arrive to school on Monday mornings nearly lame from aches in me legs from the race the day before.

Common Sense

I would say sprinting is catching up - we were spoiled in the past with the Delaneys, Coghlans, Treacys, O'Sullivans (Sonia & Marcus) etc. But now if we talk of athletes with the potential to make European finals in track and field on an individual level, you can count Cragg, Reale and Roisin McGettigan (steeple) at middle distance and O'Rourke, Gillick and Cuddihy in the sprints, which is a 50/50 split - something that would have been unheard of over the last 30 or so years.