Quartet of inspiring Irish performers bequeath fine legacy to next generation

There is nothing more sad or glorious than generations changing hands. That's from Ecclesiastes, a fine work of pearly wisdom.

There is a glorious generation of Irish athletes changing hands right now, and the sad thing about that is not so much who is coming but the thought of who is being left behind. Generations come and go, the sun rises and sets and hurries around to rise again, but how long before we see the likes of Derval O’Rourke, David Gillick, Paul Hession and Joanne Cuddihy again?

Even casual admirers of this sport will know that Ireland’s athletics tradition was largely built on long-distance runners, or heavyweight throwers. There was always the odd exception. But those of us who once raced each other as Eamonn Coghlan and Sebastian Coe never had any ambitions to be an Irish sprinter, and definitely not an Irish sprint hurdler. The Irish sprint records were proof of how limited those ambitions should be, especially when compared to where the rest of the world stood.

What inspired the generation of athletes such as O’Rourke, Gillick, Hession and Cuddihy was the daring dream to do something different. No athlete begins their career knowing how it will end, only the hope that it will finish better than it starts. There will always be regrets, not simply over what was not done but what was; or at least the realisation that even the best laid plans can go astray.

Laudable achievement But here were four athletes who between them took Irish sprint and hurdling records from somewhere near the bottom of the world rankings to somewhere nearer the top. Their lusty ambition was n

ot so much to follow in the footsteps of anyone else but to leave their own imprint. And while they may not all receive the ceremonial applause that echoed in the wake of O’Rourke’s retirement this week, each of their individual records can be admired for that which they represent.

Their four careers hit peaks and troughs at different times also, but at other times they seemed to carry each other. O’Rourke’s championship medal haul – World indoor gold, two European outdoor silver, two European indoor bronze – was always going to single her out for special praise, and deservedly so. Gillick, Hession and Cuddihy may not have always got what they deserved, but as O’Rourke wrote so eloquently this week, “it’s not a fairy tale, it’s sport, and it’s been amazing”.

There certainly was that amazing Wednesday night in Berlin, at the 2009 World Championships, when O’Rourke, Gillick and Hession walked through the mixed zone, one after the other, having gone where no Irish sprinters had gone before. O’Rourke had just run in the final of the 100m hurdles, finishing fourth; Gillick had just made the final of the 400m, and would later finish sixth; and Hession had just came with two spots of making the 200m final, where he would have lined up alongside Usain Bolt and his stunning 19.19-second world record.

Cuddihy missed Berlin through injury, but two years before, at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, ran 50.73 seconds for the 400m, and she remains the first and only Irish woman to break 51 seconds. That all national records set by those four athletes are still in place is just one indication of their worth.

Indeed the 12.65 seconds that O’Rourke ran for the 100m hurdles in Barcelona in 2010, when winning the second of her European outdoor silver medals, looks certain to stand a significant test of time, especially given no other Irish woman has broken 13 seconds. Likewise the 7.84 seconds O’Rourke ran for the 60m hurdles indoors, when winning her world title in Moscow in 2006, when no other Irish woman has broken eight seconds.

Early promise Gillick was just 21 when he broke on to the international stage in 2005, winning the first of his two back-to-back European Indoor titles over 400m. By then, Irish 400m running appeared to have reached a plateau. In 1986, Derek O’Connor ran 45.73, very quick by Irish standards, and indeed that stood as the national record for 16 years, until Paul McKee lowered it to 45.62, which was very, very quick by Irish standards.

Then Gillick came along, and started to decimate it, until in 2009 he ran 44.77 seconds, very quick by even world standards. Gillick went under 45 seconds again, in 2010, the year he probably should have medalled at the European Championships, in Barcelona, missing out by .05 of a second. No other Irish athlete has come close to running 44-something in the years since, and if that’s another record which feels out of reach right now then Gillick alone is to blame.

Hession has also exited the international stage in the modest manner that marked his career, but with his national records equally intact: his 10.18 for 100m and 20.30 for 200m – both clocked in 2007 – may not be carved in stone, but again will not be easily rewritten.

History repeats itself. It has all been done before. That's to paraphrase Ecclesiastes once again. But by going together where no Irish athletes had gone before, the history of these four athletes may never be repeated.