Train and you'll miss Belfast bus

On Athletics:The actor Daniel Day Lewis says he takes on only roles that have meaning for other people, and it should be the same with new-year resolutions. For athletes, selfish by nature and prone to resolutions, the standard is not easy to achieve; they will most likely start the year by saying, "I will not miss a day's training" or simply, "I will train harder."

Yet one way of benefiting a wider cause is to make a conscious effort to compete more frequently during 2008 - whether that means more running, jumping or throwing. Because right now Irish athletes appear to have developed a certain fear of competing, which in turn has taken the edge off some of the more traditionally competitive events. The focus needs to shift away from training and back to competing.

Take, for illustration, this afternoon's Belfast International Cross Country. Since 1977 it's been among the first big races of the year, and from early on it became a not-to-be-missed event for any distance runner with serious ambitions for the season ahead. In fact it boasts a quite remarkable history of star competitors.

The inaugural race attracted Britain's reigning European 5,000 metres champion, Brendan Foster, who like most of his contemporaries had no fear of cross-country. Foster was well fancied to win, and most likely would have won had he not been misinformed about the number of laps. As a result he was narrowly beaten by Waterford's Gerry Deegan, who a few weeks later went on to finish 21st in the World Cross Country.

In 1978 the Belfast line-up included a promising British youngster, Steve Ovett, who easily handled the demanding terrain to record an impressive victory. Later that year Ovett would win the European 1,500-metre title, and the rest of his career is history.

When Ovett was seeking to rediscover his form in 1984 he returned to Belfast, and won again.

Soon the event was famous for its gathering of celebrated distance runners, who would congregate in the Chimney Corner Hotel next to the course at the playing fields in Mallusk.

John Treacy, the two-time World Cross Country champion, won the race in 1982, when another promising youngster from Britain, Steve Cram, finished third.

The women's race was first staged in 1986 and that too became a sort of stepping stone for future stars. Catherina McKiernan won in Belfast in 1992 and two years later was just beaten by Paula Radcliffe - and they both recall the race as a breakthrough event in their great careers.

Each year at least one busload of spectators would travel from Dublin, and oftentimes I was among them.

In 1988 we were all excited by the reappearance of Cram, by then the world-record holder for the mile, who was running cross-country as part of his preparation for the Seoul Olympics. He struggled around a sodden course and finished outside the top 10, but knowing the endurance test would stand to him later in the year.

This afternoon only a handful of spectators will travel from Dublin. Eight years ago the race moved to Stormont Estate and still attracts a decent international field, but Irish interest is minimal. The national champion Gary Murray and the former national champion Maria McCambridge are down to run, and they are exceptions; most of the other Irish cross-country names have stayed away.

The race organiser Brian Hill, who has been involved since the beginning, admit attracting Irish runners has become a real problem, mainly because the depth of native distance talent is just not the same as 10 or 15 years ago.

That's part of the problem - and yet so too is the problem of favouring training over racing.

Ronnie Delany raised that point at a recent awards dinner, recalling the days he would race at almost every opportunity, whether he was primed for it or not. This wasn't to brag about his incredible string of victories (which he might well have done - considering he won 40 consecutive indoor races between March 5th, 1955, and March 28th, 1959) but instead to highlight what he quite clearly believes is the modern Irish athlete's overemphasis on training.

In other words, Delany only ever trained to race and never raced at training - which is the obvious trap for anyone who puts too much emphasis on the act of preparation. The expression "I left it on the training field" is familiar to all sports, and to none more than athletics.

Incredibly, the last Irishman to finish among the top three in the men's race in Belfast was Cormac Finnerty, who posted third back in 1996. It's no coincidence that later that year Finnerty qualified for the 5,000 metres at the Atlanta Olympics.

Eamonn Coghlan was also third, in Belfast in 1980, the year he should have won the 5,000 metres at the Moscow Olympics.

No one ever qualified for the Olympics in a training run, though many may well have reached the necessary standard in training. And there are definitely no medals handed out after training runs.

It's a pity then that Ireland's few Olympic hopefuls have stayed away from Belfast (Alistair Cragg, where are you?) as they appear increasingly devoted to their training schedules.

A cross-country race in Belfast in January may seem a long way from the Olympic Stadium in Beijing in August, but it probably wouldn't have been too far away for the likes of Foster, Ovett, Treacy, Coghlan and Cram.