AAI Athlete of the Month - Great month for Ireland

thirtyfoot

http://www.athleticsireland.ie/content/?page_id=6228

Mary Cullen and Derval O' Rourke have been awarded the Athlete of the Month for March (it'll be interesting to see if that tallies with the results of the Boards 'Irish Athlete of the Quarter' which is soon to be released/counted!!)

Great month it was.

The medals for the girls.
Fagan's record in the half.
Costin's record in the walk.
Roisin's 4th in Turin
The 4 x 400 women 4th in Beijing
Kelly Proper's massive jump in Turin
A male miler to maybe get excited about in young McCarthy.

All good and promises to be a great summer ahead, bring it on!!!!!!!!

runrunrun

great month...wish they'd have given it to just one athlete though...and that athlete should have been mary cullen

runrunrun

great month...wish they'd have given it to just one athlete though...and that athlete should have been mary cullen

Stupid_Private

runrunrun wrote: »

great month...wish they'd have given it to just one athlete though.

Agreed. In it's second month it already loses some credibility.

ChickenTikka

AAI had a poll on its website earlier in March for this very topic:-

http://www.athleticsireland.ie/content/?page_id=6004

Not sure if above link works directly ... if not, select Fanzone on the left hand menu and then you will see the poll towards the bottom right. View results shows ... Mary Cullen with 38% of the vote and Derval O'Rourke with 12%.

What's the point in voting when "the selectors for the Athlete of the Month" are going to make up their own mind anyway? Is it an example of "the principles of communication, consultation and collaboration" that the CEO talks of in her blog at http://www.athleticsireland.ie/content/?page_id=6042 ?

thirtyfoot

The poll is a bit of craic I'd imagine and probably not connected to selection which I know is done by media pundits and top coaches. I'm sure Mary won't mind sharing, she isn't that petty:cool:

Jaysus, Chicken Tikka putting a spin on this is hilarious and its only a bit of craic and to create some interaction and I think you maybe making something political out of this when there is nothing there. If you have problems with your organsition try make a difference from within.

Lets leave the anti-CEO/pro-CEO debate out of this and focus on the athletes and their great performance.

myflipflops

I presume the athlete of the month thing was started up in order to help generate a bit more press and publicity - they can send out this realease every month and potentially pick up some media space that's so tough to come by for irish athletics. If this is the case then why not give it to both your medalists and send around a nice picture of the 2 girls with the medals? It looks a good story for a paper to pick up to me.

thirtyfoot

http://www.athleticsireland.ie/content/?page_id=6004

New poll there now of who will win the Mens Road relays next week.

Chicken Tikka - if we all vote Raheny, does that mean they won't need to run the race next week but if they do run the race and Clonliffe win it will be yet another example of "the principles of communication, consultation and collaboration" breaking down because the results of a poll on the website doesn't match the actual result:D:D:D:D

Joking aside, this could work. Lets hold no races or champs, just vote on who will win. Maybe make it X Factor esque. Chamney vs Campbell, vote to see who will win this summer. They both do auditions, sing a song, look good, do a few build ups, do finish line celebration with Campbell doing the Airplane and Chamney the clenched fist etc etc. We all text vote on who wins or vote online and what time they run. Most votes win and the average of all times entered is the winning time. Could it work? Panel of mentors. Sonia looks after Campbell, Louis Walsh after Chamney. I like it. Special feature each week. This week is Paul Ereng week, both contestant must do a Paul Ereng cover and win an 800 despite being 20m down at the bell and the following week Prefontaine covers over the mile where both contestants must go hard from the gun and whoever dies on the homestraight and finishes 4th the best wins. This will work. Even better. The Athletics Apprentice. Eamonn Coghlan does an Alan Sugar or Bill Cullen, picks his apprentice. Now that would work. Ideas, ideas. I must put these into action.

cfitz

Tingle wrote: »

the following week Prefontaine covers over the mile where both contestants must go hard from the gun and whoever dies on the homestraight and finishes 4th the best wins

Brilliant!

ChickenTikka

Tingle wrote: »

http://www.athleticsireland.ie/content/?page_id=6004

New poll there now of who will win the Mens Road relays next week.

Chicken Tikka - if we all vote Raheny, does that mean they won't need to run the race next week but if they do run the race and Clonliffe win it will be yet another example of "the principles of communication, consultation and collaboration" breaking down because the results of a poll on the website doesn't match the actual result:D:D:D:D

Yeah . In fact, I think this poll is rigged ... its only got the Dublin teams listed. I know the Dubs were complaining that the country ruffians never come up to support those relays but whatdoya expect when ye won't even list them in the polls. The CEO might as well change the name to Athletics Dublin.

thirtyfoot

http://www.rte.ie/sport/racing/2009/0409/athletics.html

Derval O' Rourke has won the Irish Times Sportswoman of the Month for March. More good news. Mary wasn't considered as they have the "Mary Rule" which means one person can't win two monthly awards in the same year. Mary won in December 08 and Feb 09 I think so they brought in the "Mary Rule" similar to the "Jessica Rule" when Kuerten was winning every month. So 3 of the last 4 monthly winners have been our athletes. Happy days.