Citius, slicker Mullane is the real deal for Cyril

OLYMPIC TV:Usain Bolt wasn't bad but unlike the Tipp lads he didn't have to contend with a fired-up Waterford forward, writes Mary Hannigan

Whether or not Waterford can take gold against Kilkenny next month remains to be seen - Cyril didn't dismiss the possibility - "They're intermarried - they know each other's ins and outs" - but whatever happens, you sense they'll still be celebrating this one in 3008.

"Citius, altius, fortius," Davy Fitz had probably advised his men pre-match, and indeed they ran faster, leapt higher and were stronger in the tackle in the opening spell, none more so than John Mullane, who reminded Cyril of "Yifter the Shifter".

After that it was one of those games where you were still trying to take in the magnitude of the last momentous happening (a goal, point-blank save, or suchlike) when another one came along, to the point where you gave up trying to keep up, dizzy from it all.

A bit like Usain Bolt's rivals - and we use the word in the loosest sense - in the 100-metre final.

"They get away first time, Powell has got a very good start, so did Dix alongside him, but here comes Usain Bolt, Usain Bolt, streaking away from the field, it's going to be gold for Jamaica."

Thirty-six words - that's all Steve Cram managed to squeeze in between Bolt starting and Bolt finishing. The start gun had only got to the "a" of the "bang!" when he was on his lap of honour.

Granted, Dave Fanning would have managed 236, but we mere mortals would probably have had time for just the two: "Good God."

"That is perfection; there's nothing else to figure out," said Michael Johnson, up in the gods of the Bird's Nest with the BBC. Michael Johnson was a little perfect himself in his running days, so this was lofty praise indeed.

Over on RTÉ Jerry Kiernan broached the thorny subject of whether Bolt's mind-boggling achievement was, bearing in mind the times that are in it, believable, but he reckoned and hoped with every thump of his beating heart that it was, even if Jamaica's bib, in common with that of most of the rest of the sporting planet, isn't entirely clean on that front.

Back on the BBC Colin Jackson reassured us by reminiscing about Bolt in his junior running days, when all he left behind him was a trail of dust, so at least we knew the signs of other-worldly sprinting brilliance were there from the "b" of the bang.

"He's now a global superstar," said Johnson. "Michael Phelps? Michael Who? At this point it's all about Usain Bolt, and deservedly so."

For fear the swimming fraternity might jam the BBC switchboards Hazel Irvine very politely suggested that not everyone would agree that Phelps had been anonymised by Bolt's triumph, Johnson not quite backing down by muttering, "What do they matter?"

For most of us, though, Phelps - with a daily breakfast of three fried-egg sandwiches, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, fried onions, mayonnaise, three chocolate-chip pancakes, a five-egg omelette, three sugar-coated slices of French toast and two cups of coffee - is the ultimate role model because we can relate to his diet, although some of us prefer to leave out the lettuce.

That he can still fit into his LZR Racer swimsuit (lunch: a pound of enriched pasta, two large ham and cheese sandwiches with mayonnaise on white bread, energy drinks. Dinner: a pound of pasta with carbonara sauce, large pizza, energy drinks) is, perhaps, an even greater achievement than those eight gold medals. Others have tried and had to call the fire brigade just to be cut out of the legs.

And with every thump of our beating hearts we'll trust that Phelps, like Bolt, is believable. Some are irked by those who wonder, but when the wonderstruck get bitten more than several times they begin to shy of being bitten again.

Our star of the weekend, though, was Britain's Liz Yelling, who managed to finish the marathon, in 26th place, despite been sent tumbling in the early stages, ending up with a suspected cracked rib and a gruesomely bruised right arm.

Not that the BBC really noticed, so obsessed were they by Paula Radcliffe's woes.

Legend that she is, Radcliffe's presence in the race more often than not took the minds of Cram and Brendan Foster's off Yelling's heroics, much of the focus at the end on Radcliffe's lion-hearted attempts to get Yelling some medical attention.

"What about the future?" the BBC man asked Radcliffe, crumpling in pain, as she gasped for air at the finish line. "A holiday," said Radcliffe.

"No, I meant London 2012," he said.

That Radcliffe didn't deck him was, surely, the finest achievement of her career.