Sonia O’Sullivan: Marcus O’Sullivan one of my real heroes

A few years ago, I got a call from Athletics Ireland asking me would I accept their Hall of Fame award.

At the time I’d only recently stopped competing internationally; I was actually still hesitant about announcing my retirement.

In some ways an athlete never truly retires. Training and competing is such a central part of their existence that in order to maintain some sanity and balance in their life a dose of daily training or exercise is required.

So I politely declined the Hall of Fame.

Part of the reason was I didn’t think I was old enough, or at least far enough removed from competing, to accept such an honour. Especially as there were so many Irish athletes who had gone before me – athletes I not only looked up to but also who had inspired me down through the years, helped mark out the path of my own success.

Among those to already receive this Hall of Fame award from Athletics Ireland are Ronnie Delany, Eamonn Coghlan, John Treacy and Frank O'Mara – a suitably illustrious list of Olympic medallists and World champions.

Now added to that list is Marcus O’Sullivan, who was back in Dublin yesterday to collect the honour at the Athletics Ireland annual awards.

Whenever I’m asked who are my heroes in athletics the name Marcus O’Sullivan is always top of the list.

Not long ago I even took Pádraig Harrington off the Good Wall on the Second Captains TV show and replaced him with Marcus. The lads weren’t impressed but to me Marcus is definitely one of our greatest athletes.

World Indoor titles

It’s sometimes forgotten that Marcus won three World Indoor titles over 1,500m, in 1987, 1989 and 1993.

He's also one of only three men in history to run more than 100 sub-four minute miles, along with 1976 Olympic 1,500m champion John Walker of New Zealand, and the American Steve Scott.

Those were the days before the internet and the now instant results and videos on social media, but in some ways it made more of an impact, when you stayed up late watching on TV, or read reports in the paper the next day.

I was just finishing school at Cobh Vocational School in 1987 when Marcus won his first world title, and was taking over from Coghlan as 'Chairman of the Boards' in the big US indoor meetings such as the Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden.

Around then I was also deciding where to go to college in America, as this was the path taken by most young Irish athletes in the 1980s, and before that going back to Delany’s time in the 1950s.

So I visited Villanova and met Marcus there, a superstar at the time, even more famous in the US than in Ireland because of his success indoors. He’d finished at Villanova but still lived close by and had a big influence on me as I weighed up my options of where to go to college.

Villanova was always the front runner, the so-called Irish ‘pipeline’, producing so many great athletes down through the years, including Delany and Coghlan, as well as Marcus himself.

It was always going to take something special to convince me that I belonged anywhere else, because I wanted a bit of the Villanova magic to rub off on me.

Still you never know how things will turn out in your life, although knowing Marcus certainly helped me make up my mind.

Then, on my very first senior international selection, for the 1987 Europa Cup in Portugal, Marcus was also on the Irish team. I’d just finished school, and straightaway found myself running for Ireland, alongside some of the running heroes.

Big inspiration

It turned out Marcus was the most down-to-earth person you could meet. He was also proof, from early on, that hard work gets results, a big inspiration for me at the time. Hopefully now, with his Hall of Fame awards, some of that inspiration can rub off on the current younger generation of Irish athletes.

That’s really what these awards are about. It’s nice to acknowledge the athlete, but it’s also about reliving and sharing their experiences in the hope the next generation can follow suit. There are times we need to look backwards to move forward, to value the achievements of those that have succeeded before us, use this as motivation to work hard and achieve great things.

I always felt if Marcus could win a world title, why couldn’t I?

Maybe because we were both from Cork, with the same surname, there was some added connection that instilled that belief, at the most basic level, but he certainly helped inspire my success.

After meeting Marcus, on that first Irish team, I didn’t feel intimidated, and in ways that helped me feel like this is where I belonged.

As a result I ran a personal best and finished third in the race: one small step forward, and an important achievement that motivated me to go back and work harder and do better the next time.

Later, I remember running at the Cork City Sports, in 1992, and again Marcus was there, having carried the hopes of the home crowd for so many years.

It was the eve of my first Olympics, in Barcelona, and I recall Marcus saying to me how relieved he was to have someone to share the burden of that home expectation. It was equally important to put on a show in Cork as it was to run in the Olympics a few weeks later.

Positive people

We shared the stage in Cork for the next few years and I was also lucky enough to have Marcus around when I first moved to London to compete on the European circuit, and he always had some good advice, through good times and bad times.

There more to athletics than just racing and training. It's also about having positive people around you, to make things more enjoyable and tolerable. Marcus was always there for me, along with the likes of Frank O'Mara and Paul Donovan and my physical therapist Ger Hartmann.

I probably didn’t realise it at the time, but Marcus was an important mentor for me, someone I could respect and trust and whose opinion I could value. All athletes need someone like that.

When I spoke to Marcus, earlier this week, he was still on a high after coaching Pat Tiernan, the Australian runner, to win the American NCAA cross country championships – the first time a Villanova male athlete has won since 1963.

Part of his coaching philosophy is still this need to get the best out of athletes and also for them to understand the training and the interaction with other athletes in order to get the best results.

Marcus is not just using his achievements as a great athlete to inspire. He’s also using his ability to break things down to a very basic level, to understand what is achievable, and to instil belief in the athlete through hard work, which is also the sign of a great coach.