O'Rourke foresees 'major chops' in financial support

ATHLETICS GOVERNMENT GRANTS: WITH ALL the talk of today's Government Budget being the most pertinent in Irish history even our elite athletes, who in most other years couldn't have cared less, will be watching with nervous interest.

These are worrying times, for sure, particularly for those who failed at the Beijing Olympics.

One of the baffling coincidences of Beijing was that Ireland's two most recent championship medallists - Derval O'Rourke and David Gillick - endured the proverbial stinker, a terrible performance that left them questioning their future in the sport. The road ahead is already uncertain, only more so given the likelihood their financial support will be cut.

According to the Estimates, capital expenditure at the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism is to be reduced by almost half from €271.63 million in 2008 to €145.5 million next year. "I know my grant is going to be absolutely slashed," says O'Rourke, "that there'll be major chops. I would hope, as opposed to after Athens, when there was no faith at all put in me, that they still have some faith in me. It's a real worry."

O'Rourke this year benefited from the maximum elite grant of €40,000, while Gillick received €20,000. Since Beijing, O'Rourke has decided to return home, having spent the last year in Bath under English coach Malcolm Arnold, and will work with the husband-and-wife coaching team of Seán Cahill and Terri Horgan.

Gillick will continue to train at Loughborough University, and given the expectation his grant might also be cut, he found last week's comments by the Minister for Sport, Martin Cullen, that it was "pointless" for elite athletes to train in Ireland, extremely baffling: "I thought that was a fairly crushing thing to say. I'd like to be based in Ireland, but right now, my best bet is in Loughborough . . . Sport isn't high on the Government's agenda right now. But they have to look long term. We have done quite well in the past, got the tricolour up at major championships . . .

"I'd gone into the Olympics in good form, felt I had realistic expectations of running well. Instead, it was crushing. I didn't want to make excuses, but I had to find out what happened. I got some blood tests done, and I wasn't right. I had some virus, and we're still looking at why that was so."