Hession has real grounds for optimism

ATHLETICS/World Championships:On arrival in Osaka yesterday morning, a cool, salt mist rolled in from the ocean, and for a few hours held its own against the dense, humid heat that clamps this Japanese city from noon and remains long after sundown. Paul Hession has been waking up to these conditions for 10 days, thinking to himself "great stuff, perfect for me".

In previous years Irish athletes would have been running scared in this environment, and Hession's attitude reflects the step-up in approach towards the World Championships, where preparations rival any competing nation. For Hession there is added motivation in that he's enjoying the season of his life, and is currently the 16th fastest 200-metre runner in the world.

Given eight of those ahead of him are Americans, and only three can compete here, Hession is somewhere in the running for a place in the final - which without much exaggeration would be a revelation for world sprinting: a skinny white Irish guy, still only 24, up there with the best in the world?

"Well, coming into the season I believed I could make the semi-final," said Hession, reflecting on what has been a highly satisfying acclimatisation period just north of Osaka, in Matsue City. "The way I have been running this season that's very much my primary aim.

"If I do make the semi, then I can fully focus on running a solid race, and making the final is not totally beyond me if I have a great run and a bit of luck through the rounds. I've raced against some good athletes in the last few weeks, so I know I can compete with some of the better runners."

There are several grounds for Hession's optimism. After a memorable indoor season, where he lowered the national 60 metre record to 6.61 seconds and made the European final, Hession promptly transferred that form to the outdoors, lowering the Irish 100-metre record from 10.35 to a dazzling 10.18.

But it was over 200 metres, his chosen event for Osaka, where Hession really turned heads, especially when running his 20.30 to win the national title in Santry a month ago, the 16th-fastest run anywhere this year.

And that's saying something. It's been a big year for 200-metre running, with Tyson Gay running 19.62 - the second fastest in history - to win the US trials, and four others running under 20 seconds. But Hession is closing in fast and, considering where he has come from, it marks another sensational breakthrough for Irish athletics on the heels of Derval O'Rourke and David Gillick.

Ask Hession where it all began and you get the thoughtful, modest response from an intelligent mind, who last year deferred medical studies at UCG to pursue his deep ambition of reaching his full athletic potential.

He recalls a time in the 1990s, at the Connacht Cross Country Championships in Lough Key Forest Park in Roscommon, where, at the back of the field, with a facial expression somewhere between agony and hatred, Hession could be found as an ungainly distance runner, his sprinting potential not so much disguised as non-existent.

Nor was his hometown of Athenry exactly a hotbed of athletics. Hurling takes precedence, but thanks to the enthusiastic juvenile section at Athenry Athletic club, he drifted into some good company, and it was there he developed his love of sprinting.

He never won an Irish Schools' medal, but after starting in UCG he refocused on his athletics pursuits as a useful complement to his medical studies, and after falling under the guidance of Jim Kilty, made a breakthrough in 2003 to win silver over 200 metres in the World Student Games in Korea, lowering his best that year to 20.80.

Last year brought changes that prompted his next breakthrough, joining Scottish coach Stuart Hogg - far from a world-class name in sprint coaching, and for some still more associated for his role with former Scottish distance star Yvonne Murray.

Hogg works out of his native town of Glenrothes in Fife, about a million miles from the sort of place top sprinters normally hang out, but he spent last week overseeing Hession's final preparations in Matsue City, described as "exceptionally satisfying".

"We made a lot of changes in the weights room," adds Hession, "and trained more specifically for the event. On the track my start has improved no end; that's directly related to an increase in strength, and technical improvements. We also analyse things and take videos of my training sessions. So we're always working on something, in every rep of every session.

"The medicine is something I will go back to, and that will be the rest of my life, but I want to see how far I can go with the sprinting, and focus on that until the next Olympics at least. Right now I'm just doing exactly what I want to do at this stage of my life."

Come next Tuesday morning and the 200 metres heats, Hession will also know exactly what he wants to achieve.