Traditional strengths revealed in Osaka

On Athletics:If the World Championships in Osaka told us anything about the state of Irish athletics it's that our tradition in walking and hammer throwing remains intact. They may not be glamour events but they've been producing some of our best results since the days of a young science student named Abraham Stoker and the group of burly exiles known as the Irish Whales.

Stoker was among Ireland's first champion race walkers. In fact he was never beaten, his sole failure to win coming via disqualification after he'd won the five-mile race at the Civil Service championships in London in 1868.

Only one judge penalised Stoker for "lifting", and his performance was so impressive - he was a clear winner in 40 minutes and five seconds - the organisers presented him with a silver goblet "in appreciation of his gallant struggle".

He was indeed a hero. Bed-ridden until the age of seven with an undiagnosed disease, Stoker was by age 17 a 6ft 2in red-haired, red-bearded giant and won a stream of athletic honours at Trinity College Dublin. But walking was his passion, and it was during a marathon stroll of the Aberdeenshire countryside that he stumbled upon Cruden Bay, the atmospheric fishing village where in 1895 he wrote Dracula, published of course under the name Bram Stoker.

Ireland's hammer tradition is even more celebrated. The hammer is the only Olympic athletics event of Celtic origin, and Ireland has produced more gold medallists than any other nation. Between 1900 and 1932 Irish-born throwers won six Olympic hammer titles. Most of those, such as John Flanagan, Matt McGrath and Pat Ryan, had emigrated and were competing for the USA. They became known as the Irish Whales.

But it was Pat O'Callaghan, a resident of the old Cork barony of Duhallow and the first man to use the heel-toe turn in the hammer, who left the strongest mark on the event - winning Olympic gold in 1928 and 1932.

Anyway, back to the point. Ireland's best results at the Osaka World Championships came in race walking and hammer throwing - Robert Heffernan's sixth-place finish in the 20km walk and Eileen O'Keeffe's sixth-place finish in the hammer. Nothing about those efforts suggested the athletes had reached their peak, and the reality is they are Ireland's only medal prospects in track and field for the Beijing Olympics.

Osaka did underline the potential of Paul Hession, David Gillick and Joanne Cuddihy. For these the next year will be all about making the necessary progress to close in on an Olympic final. But winning medals? Forget it.

If he stays injury free Heffernan is a definite medal contender for Beijing. He's also in good hands, his coach being Poland's double Olympic champion Robert Korzeniowski.

O'Keeffe was just under four metres off bronze in Osaka. Her potential for improvement is still huge, at least according to Yuriy Sedykh, the greatest hammer thrower of all time.

We ran into the Russian in Osaka, and the man who threw the existing world record of 86.74 metres in 1986 reckons O'Keeffe has phenomenal natural strength but her release is too low.

Sedykh got a little too technical for us after that. His point was, however, that O'Keeffe could easily be throwing several metres farther.

The Kilkenny woman has a best of 73.21. Gold in Osaka was won with 74.76. Do the maths.