O'Rourke skips Grands Prix

ATHLETICS: One of the many rewards for a world indoor title is a first class ticket to the Grand Prix circuit, with its next major stop-off in the Czech Republic on Tuesday, followed by the famous Bislett Games in Oslo next Friday.

Derval O'Rourke was one of the first names on those start lists, but she's just told them no thanks, there's really only one race that matters this summer.

O'Rourke is determined to gear her summer towards the European Championships in Gothenburg in August, and that means putting all races on hold for the time being.

She's happy that everything is on course to transfer her extraordinary breakthrough over the 60-metre hurdles indoors to the 100-metre hurdles outdoors. An abdominal muscle injury set her back a couple of weeks, but if recent training sessions are anything to go by, her outdoor best and Irish record 12.96 seconds, set in 2003, won't be lasting much longer.

"I'd probably committed to those races a bit early," she says. "I think it was only a week after Moscow and I figured it was better to agree then than not to.

"It's tempting to go out and run all these races, and there is some great competition in Ostrava and Oslo. But what you'll find this year is the Americans and the Jamaicans will run everywhere because there's no World Championships. They can afford to go out and race early and race as much as they want, because they're not trying to peak anywhere.

"I'm trying to get everything right for Gothenburg, so I think I've made the smart move in holding back for a while."

Ireland's European Cup competition in Prague on June 17-18th will now be her first race. Her 60-metre indoor best of 7.84 - clocked when winning gold in Moscow roughly equates to 12.6 outdoors over the 100-metre hurdles. But she's not getting obsessed with times.

"Normally I'd open up with about a 13.4, but maybe drop that by half a second over the next three to four weeks. So I was never going to be prepared to open up real quick, and that's why waiting until the European Cup makes a lot more sense. And I love that event. Most years I've gone I've run well and I just feel now that's the place to start off."

She turns 25 on Sunday, and while winning the world indoor title brought the extra pressure and responsibilities associated with any overnight success, she's been careful to keep her lifestyle changes to the minimum. She still works part time in DCU, and puts her trust in her coach Jim Kilty.

"I'd always made sure I had things under control, but obviously it was on a smaller scale. Like with Seán Cahill helping with my technique, and I'd also a nutritionist and sports psychologist. But I needed an agent to handle the other stuff, because the most important thing for me is the training, and I can't afford to get distracted from that.

"Conor Ridge took over that and has been great, and negotiated any sponsorships for me, and taken all that out of my hands. He's helped me avoid a lot of that stress."

O'Rourke is about to complete a major endorsement deal, but despite an offer from a leading American-based athletes' representative, who flew in with promises of at least $5,000 per race and the guarantee of at least 10 Grand Prix appearances, she's stuck with British-based race promoter Andy Norman.

"I was happy to stay with Andy. I still remember when he got me my first race at age 17, when I'd a best of 13.9. Then after the Athens Olympics when things had gone really bad he stood right by me again, and told me I'd come back so much stronger after it. When people like that are so good to you it's hard not to forget them."

Kilty and herself are also acutely aware of the history of Irish athletes doing well indoors, then failing to transfer that form outdoors. So they've taken nothing for granted, and essentially boxed up the indoor season and started all over again.

"The first thing we worked on after Moscow was looking at getting stronger, and my weight training sessions have gone really well, and so have my speed endurance work. Much better than before the indoor season, and I'm really happy about that. But I've only been getting back to the hurdles sessions in the last week or so.

"But looking at indoors, I started racing at the end of January and peaked around six or seven weeks later. The plan is to simulate that as much as possible for outdoors, but Gothenburg is nearly 10 weeks away from the end of May. One of the big things about running the hurdles outdoors is there's more concentration involved, obviously, in getting over more hurdles. It's a lot easier to get distracted at some point when you're going over 10 hurdles instead of five.

"But I have been working on that transition. I know my speed endurance is very good, like in the sessions where I'd do six times 130 metres, with three minutes' rest. And I'd said to Jim and Seáduring the indoors that the five hurdles actually felt too short, that I wasn't getting up to top speed."

Now that's definitely encouraging.