EVERY so often a neatly hand written envelope, postmarked Australia, drops through Deirdre Gallagher's letter box. The name of the correspondent from halfway around the globe may not ring a bell with too many sports fans, not even those who consider themselves among the more knowledgeable disciples of athletics.
But Kerry Saxby - mid 30s, Australian, world-class walker - is considered something of an athletics pioneer. And her interest in Ireland's number one female walker stems from the remarkable coincidence of their native abodes. Both hail from Ballina.
In Saxby's case, Ballina is in Australia. In Gallagher's, Ballina is in Mayo. "It's funny, but Kerry just couldn't get over this," says Gallagher. "She couldn't believe there was another Ballina."
Strange too, it seems, for the commentator at the AAA Championships a few years ago. Many a man and woman from Ballina, the Mayo version, have helped to construct the concrete jungles and spaghetti junctions around the English midlands.
However, when Gallagher was strutting her stuff at the Birmingham track, she had to resist a smile when the PA tannoy interrupted her concentration with the words: "And, next, we have Deirdre Gallagher . . . all the way from Ballina, Australia." Such is the influence Saxby has had on women's walking.
Walking. Looks funny - hips wiggling, arms pumping. Time was when people sneered.
Gallagher still has to put up with it at times. Training along the roads of Dublin, the 21 year old has had to endure car horns blaring. Some drivers even have the audacity to ease up, roll down the windows and make some inane comment or other. But such incidents are becoming less frequent.
"It doesn't bother me any more, I know I am heading places," says Atlanta bound Gallagher. She is a focused, self assured young woman who has taken a break from her Social Science studies in UCD (two years completed) and is currently working in the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications. "The only place those guys are going is home." Deirdre Gallagher, after all, is guaranteed her place in Ireland's team for this summer's Olympic Games in Atlanta. On February 25th she won the Manx Airline International in the Isle of Man. Her time of 45 minutes 12 seconds for the 10,000 metres race was 18 seconds inside the A qualifying time for the Olympics.
Fate is a strange thing. Gallagher almost stumbled into walking. Considered a handy enough cross country runner as a youngster, the Connacht Branch of BLOE started to hold some hind walking events after the more serious events during the summer track season. One day, Joe Doonan, now more noted as Catherina McKiernan's coach, went across to the then 11 year old Gallagher after one such fun walk. "He told me I had talent, to consider taking it up," she recalls.
It was the sort of adult compliment to a child which registers. So, during the winter, Gallagher continued to run cross country. But in the summer months her attention turned to walking. Faster and faster. To such an extent that she became a pioneer of women's walking in Ireland; at schools, club and national level. Most of her juvenile records still stand.
By the time Gallagher reached 17 years of age, the sports mad kid from the west of Ireland - who had dabbled in basketball, Gaelic football and water polo - had found her true vocation and was competing for Ireland in senior international competition. Hungary. Korea. Sweden. Norway. Spain. Yes, Gallagher was the one going places.
"I know I have achieved so much more as a walker than I ever would have as a runner," she states.
Walking is a physically demanding sport. The technical side of things decrees that one foot must be in contact with the ground at all times and also that the leg must be properly locked when making that contact. Technique, just like the swimmer or the gymnast, is so important.
One of the most heartbreaking sights in athletics is a walker being hauled ashore by an official - always a chap with a brightly coloured blazer - for "lifting." It is something that appears to occur more often than not within sight of the finish line, a more than my job's worth official pouncing from the grass verge to drag some poor innocent away with the TV cameras shooting the incident for posterity.
IT happened Deirdre Gallagher once. And only once. At a Community Games national final in Mosney, of all places. The memory doesn't exactly haunt her, but it remains nevertheless.
An under 13 600 metres race on the grass track. Heading around the last bend with 100 metres left, another girl comes up on the inside lane and trips her. Gallagher was the one disqualified. No prior warning, as the big guns even get. "I felt hard done by, but I'm over it now," she said. Life has moved on.
The Irish woman hasn't had any such nightmares since. Touch wood. "I've got quite a good technique," she explains. "It all goes back to technique and, of course, concentration. You can't let your mind wander at all in a race, which is why I much prefer road racing, even if undulations tend to take more out of you physically. Going round a track can be more than a little monotonous."
Why do so many top class walkers get pulled up within close proximity of the white line? "I don't really know. But when you push yourself to the limit your style must deteriorate as a consequence. You have to be zoned in, all the time. However, when you push too far, then even the best runners, never mind walkers, lose style and technique."
Most of Gallagher's training work is done in the Phoenix Park; fewer cars to stop and stare. Pat and Joe Ryan two brothers from Mullingar Harriers are, more often than not, her training partners. The guys who urge, cajole and encourage her on to faster times. And coach Michael Lane travels up from Athlone each week to ensure the programme is working.
The programme. Gallagher trains six days a week, clocking up 60 miles of walking - whether it be in the Phoenix Park, along the Stillorgan dual carriageway or on the track at Belfield and also visits the gym three times a week for vital body strengthening. Luckily, Trinity's director of sport, Joanne O'Halloran, has provided use of the gym up the road from her workplace.
Jimmy McDonald's sixth place finish in the 1992 Olympics gave Irish walkers a gigantic boost; Sonia O'Sullivan and McKiernan's achievements in more recent times have inspired Gallagher even further.
Atlanta 96 is a dream about to come true. Realistically, Gallagher knows her best years will be in the future. She's done really well. The pride of Ballina. At 21, she's still very young for top flight international competition. Maybe Sydney in the year 2000. Or the years beyond will give her the best times of her life. But Gallagher is making huge strides, competitively.
When she travelled with a party from UCD athletic club to Philadelphia just a couple of weeks ago to compete in the famous Penn. Relays - with 45,000 spectators on the Saturday alone - Gallagher finished second in the 5,000 metres event behind American Olympian Michelle Rohl, with another Atlanta bound American Debbie Lawrence behind in third.
Most importantly, though, Gallagher set a new Irish record of 21 minutes 41 seconds, one minute 10 seconds inside her old mark set exactly 12 months previously. "That's a huge chunk for the distance, it just shows how much I have improved in just one year," she says.
Gallagher's plans over the next couple of months up to the Olympic Games will most likely centre around warm weather training, possibly in the Canaries, and a rare competitive outing at the Irish Nationals at Santry on June 15th-16th.
Otherwise, it will be training, training and more training. Preparations are all important and, while it may be expecting too much to take home a medal in Atlanta, her goal is to set a new Irish record for the distance. That would be reward enough. Anything else will be a real bonus.
When the actual women's 10 km walk takes place in Atlanta on July 29th, Gallagher will hopefully have some members of her family - possibly father Danny, mother Breege and brothers Donal and Sean - cheering her on.
That national record is her goal. But the medals look destined for the Italians or Finns or Russians or, ahem, the Chinese. Or, perhaps, Saxby, the other girl from Ballina, can come up trumps. Who knows?
