Ian O'Riordan On Athletics: I met Martin Fagan for a coffee last Monday, and he was acting like the king of the world. He's a modest and laid-back kind of guy but he could not disguise his immense pride and satisfaction at having recently qualified for the Beijing Olympics.
We were sitting in a small café at Dublin City University, and unsurprisingly, not a single passer-by recognised Fagan as he sipped his regular cappuccino, his sixth cup of the day. I suspect very few of them would have even heard that Fagan had run 2:14:06 in the Dubai marathon back on January 18th, thus becoming Ireland's first Olympic qualifier at the distance since 1992.
Fagan cannot wait to get to Beijing; he is relishing the challenge of running 26.2 miles in what will surely be brutally tough conditions. At 24 he knows he's a little young and inexperienced to think about winning a medal, but for the true distance runner, it doesn't get much better than representing your country in the Olympic marathon. And who knows? - with four more years' maturity Fagan could be a contender in London in 2012.
Unlike most of us caught up in the rat race, Fagan also does not seem to have a care in the world, despite the fact he hasn't run a step since Dubai. He finished that race in crippling pain and was later diagnosed as having a double stress fracture of the sacrum and pubic bones, which will require at least another four weeks' rest. No worries, he says, he needed the break anyway, and there's still ample time to get fully fit for Beijing. Let us hope that proves true.
What was most rewarding about meeting with Fagan was sensing his single-minded devotion in pursuing his dream of Olympic participation - that old, romantic ideal that has somehow been lost in our obsession with material prosperity. Throughout his five years on scholarship in Providence College, Rhode Island, he saw Beijing on the horizon and never lost sight of it.
When he graduated last May he made the all-or-nothing move to Flagstaff, Arizona, where he upped his weekly training to 140 miles (yes, that's 20 miles a day, and we're talking hard running here, not easy jogging).
Despite the well-documented fiasco with US immigration in December, which messed up all his training and race plans, Fagan remained focused on his dream, and Olympic qualification was just reward for what was a massive and courageous effort.
Of course he's not alone in this. Fortunately, we have several others heroically pursuing Olympic qualification, also stopping at nothing in the hope of joining Fagan and the other 12 Irish athletes already qualified for Beijing. Among them is Gareth Turnbull, recently decamped to Florida in his quest to secure the 1,500-metre qualifying time, and two 800-metre hopefuls - David Campbell, already race-fit in Australia, and Thomas Chamney, who has also made a boom-or-bust move, to Spain.
Although he probably would not admit it, Peter Coghlan is also back in contention for Olympic qualification, having come out of retirement to win the 60-metre hurdles at last weekend's national indoor championships in Belfast.
Coghlan ran the 110-metre hurdles at the Sydney Olympics, the year after he set his Irish record of 13.3 seconds, arguably one of our best national records. His form, however, was soon hampered by injury, and he quit the sport in 2006.
With an Ivy League degree from Yale University and a strong personality, Coghlan, at 32, had other ambitions to fulfil, but deep down he wasn't satisfied, and eventually the hunger for competition returned. Despite all the sacrifices he's made over the years, Coghlan is prepared to make more, and if he does make it to Beijing you can be sure he'll cherish every moment of it.
Yet for a lot of people, it seems the likes of Fagan and company don't matter a whole lot, because the Beijing Olympics are somehow going to be a disaster, a waste of time.
Within hours of leaving Fagan's inspiring company last Monday, I came across the latest of this brigade - the head-down, moaning-type who cannot handle the prospect of Ireland not winning a medal in Beijing. It's now a practically daily occurrence to hear someone complain about our "no-hopers" going to the Olympics.
These are invariably the same people who moan about the economy and falling house prices, and if the phenomenon of talking down a subject does in fact contribute to increased pessimism then the Olympics are suffering a similar fate.
None of the big, fancy sportswriters - the "they're all on drugs" campaigners - have anything good to say these days about the Olympics, and least of all Beijing, which has fast become a human-rights issue as much as a sporting event.
It is impossible to ignore the human, political and economic implications of China hosting the Olympics, and I would agree with John O'Shea of the charity Goal, who recently wrote, "the celebration of the purity of sport by a government tainted by corruption, duplicity and the deaths of thousands should fool nobody." I was recently in Beijing and it felt like one giant contradiction, with a strong air of hypocrisy.
Maybe they won't be the greatest Olympics ever, but that should not lessen the achievement of qualifying, which remains one of the ultimate sporting honours.
Ask any of our former Olympians and they'll tell you that. And for those who insist on treading on Beijing, tread softly, for you're treading on someone's dream.
