Ian O'Riordan, Con Houlihan and Maria McCambridge

wrstan

Really charming reflection by O'Riordan in today's IT, remembering Con Houlihan and his love of women's athletics. Nice little tribute to Maria too.

Made for a good accompaniment to my French toast and bacon after this morning's LSR.

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/other-sports/genial-con-would-drink-a-toast-to-success-of-maria-mccambridge-and-rose-anne-galligan-1.1483409

SomethingElse

What's 2:00.69 in the metric system?

YFlyer

SomethingElse wrote: »

What's 2:00.69 in the metric system?

What you mean?

wrstan

Galligan set a new National record in the 800 at the Anniversary games last weekend at 2:00.xx

http://corkrunning.blogspot.ie/2013/07/rose-anne-galligan-sets-new-irish-800m.html

YFlyer

Ah ok cheers.

I get it now. SomethingElse is thinking that Sonia is much older then what she is.

Sonia time was for an 800m not 880 yards.

LacticAthlete

Thought it was horrific. 953 words of athletics coverage all week and he spends 1/3 of it talking about Con Houlihan's choice of drink. I appreciate the memorial but come on at least get a quote or two from the athletes!

At least he didn't reference bob dylan and his neighbour who name cannot be mention but is Daniel X or X Day Lewis.

Get this chump off the paper.

InsaneBolt

LacticAthlete wrote: »

Thought it was horrific. 953 words of athletics coverage all week and he spends 1/3 of it talking about Con Houlihan's choice of drink. I appreciate the memorial but come on at least get a quote or two from the athletes!

At least he didn't reference bob dylan and his neighbour who name cannot be mention but is Daniel X or X Day Lewis.

Get this chump off the paper.

+1

PVincent

Who do you suggest the Irish Times get to write an Athletics Column. Very difficult to get an article that long on just results and comments from athletes. Very hard to get comments from athletes. I like the stuff Ian writes. We get all the results and comments you want on the net, fbook, twitter, etc etc. By and large you get a decent and heartfelt article every week. At least he is a guy who loves athletics.

Chivito550

LacticAthlete wrote: »

Thought it was horrific. 953 words of athletics coverage all week and he spends 1/3 of it talking about Con Houlihan's choice of drink. I appreciate the memorial but come on at least get a quote or two from the athletes!

At least he didn't reference bob dylan and his neighbour who name cannot be mention but is Daniel X or X Day Lewis.

Get this chump off the paper.

IO'R is one of the few journalists out there giving the sport, and Irish athletes mainstream publicity. Cut him a bit of slack.

KielyUnusual

PVincent wrote: »

Who do you suggest the Irish Times get to write an Athletics Column. Very difficult to get an article that long on just results and comments from athletes. Very hard to get comments from athletes. I like the stuff Ian writes. We get all the results and comments you want on the net, fbook, twitter, etc etc. By and large you get a decent and heartfelt article every week. At least he is a guy who loves athletics.

I would love to see a bit more about athletics in the papers. The only time it ever seems to get a decent amount of space is during the latest drug scandal but this article was pretty poor. Half of it is spent talking about getting drunk down in Portobello as mentioned before. Next he moves on to Maria McCambridge, postulating that she should have been sent to the London Olympics. OK, the other girls had better qualifying times but she's a bit older so maybe it would have been nice to send her. Maria's running really well recently and is been sent to Moscow on the back of the times she has ran. This is the way things are done. Other runners had better times ahead of the London Olympics so they were sent instead.

Next is his insinuation that RAG succeeded where others failed because she wasn't laden with the expectations of being the next Sonia O'Sullivan. I don't really get this, nor do I recall any other Irish athlete being laden with this tag and crumbling under the pressure of it.

In fairness to Ian, he has written some interesting articles and most of his stuff I enjoy reading but this one was a poor effort, which didn't really say anything.

Pisco Sour

KielyUnusual wrote: »

Next is his insinuation that RAG succeeded where others failed because she wasn't laden with the expectations of being the next Sonia O'Sullivan. I don't really get this, nor do I recall any other Irish athlete being laden with this tag and crumbling under the pressure of it.

I'm guessing he's talking about Ciara Mageean. Ironically he was one of the journalists who wrote an article on her proclaiming her the next Sonia!

Seanie_H

I think he's allowed pay hommage to a writing great like Con.

Is there not an irony to criticise the journalist for applauding another journalist who loved the sport too?

Either way, I enjoyed the piece. Yes it would be great to see pure articles and commentary also but all sports journalism mix styles and stories.

Distanceman

Interesting article in sunday independant yestrday on drugs and the irish and jamaicans testing.
http://www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/genuine-athletes-are-being-done-out-of-it-29471055.html

thirstywork2

KielyUnusual wrote: »

Next is his insinuation that RAG succeeded where others failed because she wasn't laden with the expectations of being the next Sonia O'Sullivan. I don't really get this, nor do I recall any other Irish athlete being laden with this tag and crumbling under the pressure of it.


Sharon Ní Mhuineacháin,Aoife Byrne and Ann Marie Larkin to name but a few.

Nice article btw

walshb

That article sent me to sleep.

mithril

I was shocked at how poor the attendance was at the Morton Games when I popped out for the first time there last month. I believe the level of interest in competitive athletics in this country outside of an Olympics year is very low.
The only way a weekly athletics columns can be justified in a major newspaper is if it targets an audience broader than hard core athletics fans and IOR normally manages to do this quite well (I agree this specific one was not that great).

The alternative would be to drop a dedicated athletics article entirely from a newspaper and replace it something like Roisin Ingle's marathon log - a human interest focus that would probably attract a larger readership but drive the rest of us insane.

RayCun

Consider the alternative

brutes1

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/other-sports/we-repair-to-santry-to-rekindle-our-love-of-the-sport-1.1469139

I thought this article was far more interesting , especially the paragraph about the pharmaceutical world - has he a point ?

Tombo2001

KielyUnusual wrote: »

Next is his insinuation that RAG succeeded where others failed because she wasn't laden with the expectations of being the next Sonia O'Sullivan. I don't really get this, nor do I recall any other Irish athlete being laden with this tag and crumbling under the pressure of it.

.

I think there was a bit of mea culpa in this.

He wrote an article three years ago basically saying Ciara Mageean was the second coming of Sonia; and he did during the article say something along the lines of.....'I know your not supposed to say this so early in someone's career......but I really do think Ciara Mageean will be as good as Sonia was'.

thirstywork2

Tombo2001 wrote: »

I think there was a bit of mea culpa in this.

He wrote an article three years ago basically saying Ciara Mageean was the second coming of Sonia; and he did during the article say something along the lines of.....'I know your not supposed to say this so early in someone's career......but I really do think Ciara Mageean will be as good as Sonia was'.

You are writing that as if Ciara is finished.Cop on the girl has struggled with an injury and other issues.
She is the real deal but there will only ever be one Sonia.

Tombo2001

thirstywork2 wrote: »

You are writing that as if Ciara is finished.Cop on the girl has struggled with an injury and other issues.
She is the real deal but there will only ever be one Sonia.

You can interpret it anyway way you want, but I certainly did not say her career is finished. She is 21 years old and has her best years ahead of her for sure. However, O'Riordan did get carried away with himself of that occasion and I'd think he would do it differently now, and would not do the same again.

Generally though, I like his stuff. The Irish Times has a strong line up in sport, between Keith Duggan, Ken Early, Darragh O'Se and Sean Moran; and Ian O'Riordan complements these guys very well.

You are right though, there will only ever be one Sonia.....she is a once in a century athlete as far as Irish athletics is concerned, and for that reason, people shouldn't benchmark other athletes against her.

LacticAthlete

Missed Oppourtunity from IOR again http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/other-sports/heffernan-still-defiantly-walking-the-walk-1.1489863?page=2

Not even going to effort of interviewing him, just chatting about himself again. He is a bloody brilliant writer, just wish he would make more of an effort, dialing it in week in week out.