Hession leaving nothing to chance in last bid for glory

ATHLETICS: IAN O'RIORDANtalks to Paul Hession who is happy with the way his winter training programme went

IT SEEMS strange that Paul Hession is looking forward to some warm-weather training when it’s been positively balmy around Santry Stadium all week – the training conditions so perfect for sprinters that he could actually be somewhere like Jamaica.

Perhaps April will still prove the cruellest month, but either way Hession is leaving for Los Angeles today for a three-week block of training he believes will help polish off his preparations for the London Olympics. This is his last shot at glory, and he’s leaving nothing to chance. Indeed he’ll be linking up Stateside with David Gillick, another athlete leaving no stone unturned in Olympic year.

Hession has already made some big moves to help ensure he arrives in London in July at his peak, and having recently turned 29, it’s probably a case of now or never. He can still claim to be Ireland’s fastest man – even if his Irish records at 100 and 200 metres are nearly five years old – but he admits his form has dipped in recent seasons, prompting him to leave his Scottish coach, Stuart Hogg, and base himself in Dublin under the tutelage of John Coghlan.

“It was a big decision,” he says. “I was disappointed at the World Championships in Daegu last summer (failing to emerge from the heats), and had a lot of soul-searching to do. I realised the way things were going I wasn’t going to run any quicker in London than I had previously. I could very easily have sat on my laurels, maybe accepted another semi-final.

“But I wanted more, and came to the conclusion I needed freshening up, needed a change. I just think I got a bit stale, simple as that. I said I would take a risk. But I have really enjoyed being home, the changes in environment, and I have a really good group around me. And I’ve never trained as hard as I did this winter, so we’ll see. Time will tell.”

Although he ran 20.51 for the 200 metres last summer, under the 20.55 A-standard for London, Hession has struggled to match the 20.30 Irish record he ran in 2007, plus his 10.18 Irish record for the 100 metres, also from 2007. It’s time, in other words, to start focusing on the clock again.

“You can talk all you want about championship peaking, but at the end of the day, the base line needs to be fast. Whether it is an Irish record or not we will see, but I am looking to get back to the times I was hitting regularly. I would have said in interviews last year that I just need to peak for the championships, but if your base line is quicker, your peak is going to be even better. So I do need to run quicker, but I need to do it at the right time too.”

Four years ago he missed out on the Olympic 200 metres final by one place, but Hession’s task of making the final in London is surely more difficult, given the way the event has moved on. The American Wallace Spearmon has just opened the outdoor season with a 19.95, and last summer, Yohan Blake, aged just 21, ran 19.26 – suggesting Usain Bolt might not even be the best Jamaican anymore.

The more cynical athletics follower might be raising an eyebrow at those times, although Hession believes what he sees, believing they are actually possible: “Maybe I am a naive person, but I honestly think it is possible. For whatever reason the Jamaicans are running fast, I don’t think it is drugs. Maybe I am wrong. I hope I’m not.

“It is almost like we have awoken a sleeping giant. I know some people on the ground in Jamaica, and the way things have changed the last five or six years, kids over there now believe they can be a world champion. They are staying in the sport, and they have this confidence about them, that they believe anything is possible.

“I honestly think that is part of it. The event has moved on, but at the same time, it didn’t take much to make last year’s World Championship final, so on the day, despite some fancy times, you could still make a world or Olympic final with 20.30.

“It took 20.25 in Beijing and I bet it won’t be much quicker in London. Last time, I missed the world record run in an Olympic final by one place and I don’t want that to happen again.”