ATHLETICS NEWS: Ian O'Riordanlistens as European indoors medal winners Derval O'Rourke and Mary Cullen express concern about the current organisational turmoil in the sport in Ireland

YOU CAN’T beat the feel-good factor that comes with an Irish team arriving home from a championship with a couple of medals. Not for the first time, however, the team’s arrival from Turin yesterday masked some organisational turmoil within the sport.

Athletics Ireland continues to be funded by the Irish Sports Council on a weekly basis only, to cover wages, as certain key issues remain unresolved: the appointment of a director of athletics and director of coaching, and the rift between the chief executive, Mary Coghlan, and high performance manager Patsy McGonagle.

The failure to complete a funding agreement for the year inevitably inhibits any sort of even short-term planning.

A separate matter, the announcement of the high-performance grants for 2009, has also been on hold for several weeks longer than usual, not just in athletics, although they will now be announced in Dublin tomorrow.

For Ireland’s two bronze medal winners at the weekend’s European Indoors in Turin – Derval O’Rourke and Mary Cullen – avoiding these issues hasn’t been easy, but fortunately for them they didn’t get in the way of preparations; only because they didn’t allow them.

However, O’Rourke made a fairly desperate plea on leaving Turin yesterday for the leading figures in Athletics Ireland to start getting along – whatever that takes.

The crisis, which has been running now since November, may not upset her plans for the year ahead, but O’Rourke was concerned it would upset the developing athletes.

“The whole thing just disappoints me,” said O’Rourke, whose bronze medal in the 60 metre hurdles nicely supplemented her silver in the European outdoors, and gold in the World Indoors.

“It has gone on too long. And shouldn’t even have started to begin with. They’re all adults. They should just sort it out.

“But I think it’s at the stage now where I’d say 80 per cent of our elite athletes are self-sufficient, in the sense of being self-motivated, and know ourselves what we need to do to succeed.

“So this is more about the development of the sport, the grassroots, and that’s so important. There are some amazing juniors coming through, and they’re the ones who need the proper back-up and support. Because it looks like there won’t be a training camp this year because of all this. We’ve built up so much in the last few years, and we can’t let it slip. The sport is too good.”

O’Rourke had been anxious about what grant she’ll be awarded tomorrow, given her two years since 2006 had been far from productive.

For those past two years she’s been on the maximum grade, a contracted athlete, worth €40,000 a year. Despite her success in Turin, she fully expects that to be cut, although there is likely to be some adjustment given what happened here.

For Cullen, who missed almost all of 2008 through injury, the reliance on a grant is somewhat less severe as she’s one of the few Irish athletes to benefit from a decent shoe contract, with Reebok sponsoring her since she graduated from Providence College in Rhode Island two years ago.

She was awarded the international grant of €12,000 last year, mostly based on qualifying for the World Championships the previous year, and her situation underlined the importance of maintaining some sort of grant aid even when sidelined with injury.

“To be honest I almost felt a little guilty about getting that grant,” she said, “being injured for most of time. But the fact is I was still putting it all to use. Doing all the rehab, and physio, and everything I needed to do just to get back healthy.

“Luckily I have that sponsorship with Reebok. I’ve had that since I graduated, and they’ve looked after me very well since then. But for me, so much of 2008 was a nightmare, I’m just glad to get over it, glad to be back running.

“But none of us know yet what’s going for his year, and that is a bit harsh. It’s into March already, and it would be easier to plan out your year fully if you found out in January.”

While there will inevitably be some cuts across the board given the Government’s constantly worsening economic status, they probably won’t be as bad as feared.

Cullen was more positive about the future of the sport, like O’Rourke, given the overall positive impact of the team in Turin: “These championships have been great. I think when there is good atmosphere on the team like that, everyone steps up.

“Derval started off so well, and that created such a good vibe. Hopefully it can carry on.”

Though still based in Providence, Cullen is staying in her native Sligo for the next five weeks, leading up to her participation in the Great Ireland Run on April 5th. Her former Providence team-mate Martin Fagan has also signed up for that race, this creating the prospect of two Irish winners.