ATHLETICS EUROPEAN INDOOR CHAMPIONSHIPS: THE EUROPEAN Indoors may be a long way from the Beijing Olympics, but they have represented a turning point in the mood of Irish athletics. Rarely have so many athletes come to a championship event and either delivered or surpassed their expectations.
It’s just a pity the one athlete who didn’t deliver on those expectations was David Gillick. He’s already looking ahead to the outdoor season, but when he eventually looks back on his career he’ll surely think of Turin as “what could have been?”
For everyone else? Two bronze medals, two fourth places, five finalists tell part of the story. Of the 14 Irish competitors, 10 came through their qualifying rounds, and there were also six personal bests and one national record. In the end Ireland ranked eighth of the 39 competing nations. Not bad for a sport going through some organisational turmoil.
Truth is the two fourth places could just as easily have been medals too. The women’s 4x400 metre relay team went into their straight final yesterday evening ranked sixth, but after superb opening legs from Marian Andrews and Brona Furlong they were a comfortable third.
Russia and Britain were well clear, but then Belarus moved ominously close. Gemma Hynes still held third position in her leg, but handing over to Claire Bergin the race for bronze became frantic. Only in the last 150 metres did Katsiaryna Mishyna get past to earn Belarus the medal, their 3:35.03 bettering Ireland’s 3:36.82.
If that seemed close, then Roisín McGettigan seemed inseparable from a medal in Saturday’s 1,500 metres. The 28-year-old from Wicklow ran with the same determination as her training partner Mary Cullen, though with different tactics. Her plan was to come from behind, hopefully sneak through for a medal. In the end McGettigan just ran out of track.
While Russia’s Anna Alminova was the class act in winning gold in 4:07.76, comfortably holding off Spain’s Natalia Rodriguez, the battle for bronze was between three: McGettigan, Sonja Roman of Slovenia, and the other Russian Yevgeniya Zolotova. Roman just got there – sneaking in on the inside and denying McGettigan by .16 of a second, 4:11.42 to 4:11.58.
“Coming out here I just wanted to get myself into the final, and then be as close to a medal as I could,” said McGettigan, the 3,000 metres steeplechase specialist. “But coming that close . . . It’s great in one way. But I have to be disappointed as well. I shouldn’t be. But you always are when you finish fourth.
“I’ve always felt anything can happen once you make the final. I knew I just had to be patient, and that things would open up. It still gives me great encouragement for outdoors. I’m really enjoying doing this now, this whole process of getting ready for a championship. Because I want to be a force in the future.”
Paul Hession came similarly close to making the final of the 60 metres, which like McGettigan, is well down on his specialist distance, the 200 metres. Running in the second semi-final, Hession clocked a season best of 6.66 in fifth – with 6.63 going through. One of the athletes to deny him was Dwain Chambers, who produced a European Indoor record of 6.42 – thus setting him up nicely to claim the title yesterday.
Hession, however, wouldn’t be drawn into the rights or wrongs of Chambers’s presence in Turin: “As crude as the rules may be, he did his time, and now he’s back,” he said. “If people want to give out about that, then they should push for lifetime bans. And I’d be the first person to support that.”
One of the arguments against Chambers is that the cocktail of steroids he’d readily consumed is still giving him an advantage: “I haven’t been reading what he’s done so I don’t know. But it’s just a totally different world to me. I just don’t know if this stuff still goes on. I’ve been around this sport a while now and I’ve never seen anything like it. I just get on with my own thing. What else can you do?”
Gillick was trying to be philosophical too when reflecting on his personal catastrophe in the 400 metres. As it turned out, Saturday’s final saw the fancied Italian Claudio Licciardello providing a little more show than action in being beaten by Sweden’s Johan Wissman, who ran a perfect race to win from the front in 45.89 – the fastest in the world this year.
Wissman was fourth behind Gillick in Birmingham two years ago, which merely underlined what could have been for the Dubliner. The chance to win three European Indoor titles in succession does not come around very often. “The one that got away, for sure,” he said. “I’ve gone over and over the race in my head, and it gets more frustrating every time. Because I know I had the beating of everyone at these championships. And the medal was there for me.
“It was stupid though. I don’t know what other people saw, but when I went to take the Romanian, he deliberately moved out, made no effort to stay where he was, and blocked me. There was no point qualifying in third, because that would have got me an inside lane, and in indoor running that’s useless. Once I hit the deck I knew that was it. Game over.
“I’m a bit bitter, but I’ve got to look at the overall picture. I’m not going to beat myself up. All my training is geared towards the summer. And indoors, there are a lot more variables that can inhibit the way you run, as opposed to outdoors. The thing is I wasn’t ever doing a full indoor season.”
How the Irish fared
Women's 3,000m heats: D Byrne, 5th, 9:00.67 (pb). M Cullen, 1st, 8:5.01. Final: Cullen 3rd, 8:48.47. Byrne 11th, 9:08.89.
Women's 200m heats: N Whelan, 6th, 7.49 (eq pb). A McSweeney, 6th, 7.51.
Women's High Jump qualifying: D Ryan, 1.85 m (elim).
Men's 60m heats: P Hession 4th, 6.70. Semi-final: 5th. 6.66 (SB).
Men's 800m semi-final: D McCarthy 6th, 1:53.53.
Women's Long Jump final: K Proper, 6.37 m. 7th.
Women's 1,500m final: R McGettigan, 4th, 4:11.58.
Women's 4 x 400m relay: Ireland 4th, 3:36.82 (M Andrews, B furlong, G Hynes, C Bergin).
The bronze medal for Mary Cullen, matching Derval O'Rourke, brings to 14 the number of medals won by the Irish in the European Indoors championships since they received official status in 1970, five of them being gold.
