Susan Smith 1997 World Championships - Old Skool Footage

Pisco Sour

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqyJBQUWD44&feature=related

Stumbled across this. Susan Smith in the studio with Bill, Treacy and Coghlan in 1997 after coming 7th in the World Championships.

She seems very forgotten now, but she was the start of the sprinting boom in Ireland. Before her we had no world class athletes over short distances (400m or lower). You could say she broke down the barriers and showed that Irish people could be successful at sprint events, and well look where we are now.

Such a shame she never kicked on from 1997. Had a good season in 1998 setting her current NR, but burned herself out in the semi final of the Euro's and had nothing left for the final.

Dont think she was fully fit in Sydney and she retired after that.

P.S. Its funny how little Bill O'Herlihy knows about athletics. Her time was about 54.50 at the time of this interview and he asks her "to win gold in sydney how much time do you have to take off your current time? 3 seconds?". Smith replies "a second and a half".

Good man Bill, 3 seconds off her time would have been 1 full second inside the WR at that time and still a good 7 tenths inside the current record. :rolleyes:

thirtyfoot

Susan isnt forgotten for more reasons than one!

I think the initial breakthroughs were by Neil Ryan, TJ Kearns and Sean Cahill. These guys got to majors and others believed. Gary Ryan, Peter Coghlan, Karen Shinkins and others came in the next wave. Smith was without the doubt the most successful but the improvements had came before her and most interestingly it was on a domestic basis through coaches like Jim Kilty and Paddy Fay.

Pisco Sour

Tingle wrote: »

Susan isnt forgotten for more reasons than one!

Well I mean forgotten in terms of the general irish public.

myflipflops

Tingle wrote: »

Susan isnt forgotten for more reasons than one!

I think the initial breakthroughs were by Neil Ryan, TJ Kearns and Sean Cahill. These guys got to majors and others believed. Gary Ryan, Peter Coghlan, Karen Shinkins and others came in the next wave. Smith was without the doubt the most successful but the improvements had came before her and most interestingly it was on a domestic basis through coaches like Jim Kilty and Paddy Fay.

It's often forgotten how good Peter Coghlan was. 13.30 would have won a medal at this years Euro champs. I think he was ranked maybe 7th of the semi finalists in the 99 world too but was unlucky in drawing the wrong heat and finishing 5th with no fastest losers.

The domestic comment is very relevant at the moment with Derval O'Rourke being our most successful current athlete using an Irish base and an Irish coaching/support staff.

myflipflops

04072511 wrote: »

Well I mean forgotten in terms of the general irish public.

That is true for nearly every former athlete bar Sonia, McKiernan and Delaney.

How many remember Mark Carroll, Ray Flynn, Marcus O'Sullivan? Karen Shinkins won a Euro Indoor bronze but 99.99% of the population will never had heard of her.

It's just the nature of the Irish sports fans. We have this idea as a nation of being great sports supporters but it only rings true in times of success.

Pisco Sour

myflipflops wrote: »

That is true for nearly every former athlete bar Sonia, McKiernan and Delaney.

How many remember Mark Carroll, Ray Flynn, Marcus O'Sullivan? Karen Shinkins won a Euro Indoor bronze but 99.99% of the population will never had heard of her.

It's just the nature of the Irish sports fans. We have this idea as a nation of being great sports supporters but it only rings true in times of success.

Yep I agree, Irish people are pure bandwaggoners when it comes to most sports. Many watch athletics just once a year for the major champs, and some even just watch it every 4 years for the Olympics. Yet these people become "experts" and feel the need to slate our athletes when they aren't coming home with 10 Olympic Gold medals. The crap some people said about Sonia, especially in the media, after Atlanta was quite sickening, and shameful. The majority of these people would not have been tuning in week in week out to watch her destory the worlds best on a regular basis. Why cant we be more like the Brits and the Aussies who get behind all their sportspeople, regardless of the sport.

On newstalk last night, Grainne Murphy was mentioned very briefly at the very end of the bulletin, and wasnt mentioned until all the English and Scottish football results were taken care of. Crazy.

Gillian O'Sullivan got quite literally ZERO acclain for her fantastic World Silver in 2003. Olive Loughnane got a bit more media attention to be fair (though I've never been able to understand why as the achievement is no better, or worse than Gillians).

End of rant.

Pisco Sour

Tingle wrote: »

Susan isnt forgotten for more reasons than one!

What are these other reasons you speak of?