Remember the last sporting event where the talk was of natural talent and nothing else? If money, politics and science clogs the memory, enter the Community Games and the national finals weekend at Mosney.
For 30 years now the Community Games have been planting the seeds of Irish sporting talent and nurturing them towards later success on the world stage. You'll be hard pushed these days to find a team of athletes, soccer players, swimmers and so on without at least one memory of this weekend in September. Judging by the standards yesterday, that trend will continue for quite a while yet.
This year's event all started last spring with 500,000 children throughout the 32 counties, chopped down to the best after play-offs at parish level, county level and then provincial level. Unlike last year, the Indian summer heat has this year been closer to the ideal, and for the gathering of 5,800 competitors in 25 different events, yesterday was the climax of two long weekends jammed solid with sporting and cultural exploits.
It doesn't take long to realise that some of this year's participants will indeed be the sporting faces of the future. It's a personal guessing game as one looks around, even at the knee-height talent, and wonders, will he or she ever make it on the world scene? Claire Rockall of Galway was certainly oblivious to it all as she came forward to take gold in the 60 metres hurdles for girls under-10 - the same event in which Susan Smith-Walsh found her fortune almost 20 years ago.
Every year there are successful names who come back to remember the day. This year Ciaran McDonagh paid a visit to present some of the medals, and even though he was still coming down from the highs of the World Athletic Championships in Seville, he seemed right at home. "I ran the sprint events here myself a good while back," confessed Ireland's first eight-metre long-jumper. "But I was eliminated in the semi-final, which probably made me concentrate that bit more on the long jump." You don't hear too many hard luck stories around here.
What you will find is clear evidence that the country's pool of promising athletic talent shows no signs of drying up. In and around the grass track, looking as splendid as any senior track, the younger girls sprinted, the bigger girls jumped, while the older boys ran out by the main road to complete the marathon (well, six miles anyway). One prospect there was gold medal winner William Harty, a Waterford man of course. John Treacy revisited.
Or maybe the blue-ribbon event on the track - the boy's under-16 1,500 metres - won most impressively by Kevin Keating of Wexford.
Just yards away, the camogie final play-off was coming to a close. Down in the Ballroom, the boys under-16 basketball title was concluded. There were chess and draughts finals still going on as parents and families poured out of the chalets to witness the last of the medals being won.
The Community Games pledge is to unite communities near and far through the friendly sporting competition, and that is exactly what's been achieved in a manner of no limitations.
Even at this young age, however, there are those moments where the youth of today can easily be visualised as the professionals of tomorrow. You can find the under-12 soccer players taking in water to recover from the "heat" and others not much older with warm-up routines that Maurice Greene would be proud of.
Most of all, perhaps, it's about the memories, which were highlighted once more by another of the past-participants, Ronan Keating, when recalling his own day of glory in the Games programme as "standing on the start-line waiting for the crack of the gun with only one thing on my mind - oh no, I forgot to do my homework again".
Or there was John Hume providing more serious words when describing it as "the organisation with the greatest vision on the island".
There would, of course, be no vision without the 20,000 adult volunteers that make it all possible And then make it run so smoothly no matter what barriers try to get in the way. If Dublin does ever make that Olympic bid, this would be a good place to learn a few lessons.
As President Mary McAleese flew in from the All-Ireland Camogie final for the closing ceremony, the attention momentarily switched to the adults. This occasion, however, is all about developing a sporting future for the kids, with the contrasting wish that they could all stay young forever.
