Injury-free with the best still to come

ATHLETICS: Ian O'Riordan talks to Joanne Cuddihy who is running into a rich vein of form ahead of the European Championships in Gothenburg next week

Talk with most Irish athletes before a major championships and you typically get to choose from the usual subjects: A, funding; B, facilities; or C, drugs.

Talk with Joanne Cuddihy before next week's European Championships and the choice of subjects are a little different: A, glandular fever; 2, two knee operations; or C, how to combine medical studies with life as an elite athlete.

Cuddihy is the latest emerging talent in Irish sprinting - hot on the heels of the likes of Derval O'Rourke and David Gillick. At age 22 her best years are clearly ahead of her, yet two weeks ago Cuddihy lowered her 400-metre best to 51.28 seconds to win the national title in Santry.

That makes her the second fastest Irish woman after Karen Shinkins, who ran the national record of 51.09 seven years ago. Even a marginal improvement in Gothenburg next week could see Cuddihy make the final.

Down the road Cuddihy looks a safe bet to become the first Irish athlete to break 51 seconds. She has all the attributes - six feet tall with a long powerful stride; obvious reserves of athletic talent; perhaps most importantly, the mental strength to get the best out of herself when it matters most. And her improvement this summer has been remarkable - with her 200 metre best also lowered by almost a second to 23.43.

Those who have followed the Kilkenny athlete more closely are less surprised by her times. Cuddihy won a silver medal at the European junior championships in 2003 and later that summer ran an impressive 52.94. That, however, remained her best until the start of this season.

She struggled to improve in 2004, which she soon explains was because of glandular fever. It was April last year before she fully recovered, only for that summer to end in further disappointment and two knee operations.

"I don't know if I was run down from trying to do too much," she says, "but I was knocked out for most of that winter. It was just a virus, but I just wasn't able to fight it. My sister had it the same time as me, and her symptoms weren't as bad. I was lucky that I didn't get hospitalised, and just slept a lot instead.

"So I really wanted to race last summer. I went to the European Cup three weeks after my first knee operation and really struggled. I remember Derval O'Rourke just saying to me I'll never need to do anything so tough again. Then I went to the European under-23 championships, when I really wasn't in shape, and it turned out to be the hardest race I ever ran.

"A few weeks after that my second knee went. It was a simple enough thing, like runner's knee, but requires an operation to knock the loose cartilage off. Some athletes get away with it, but sometimes it catches on you, and you run the risk of falling right over."

Cuddihy admits she needed to get back racing to maintain her interest in the sport. It wasn't as if she was fitting in her college duties whenever her training schedule allowed (like a lot of athletes) - but quite the opposite.

She decided long before leaving school that she wanted to study medicine. It was in the family. Her father, Bill Cuddihy, was until recently doctor to the Kilkenny hurlers for 18 years, and having won several schools titles in the 400 metres, she considered following the American scholarship route.

"I'd done all the entrance exams," she explains, "and was offered a place in Harvard. I just didn't know if I'd get the points to study medicine here, but I said if I did, I'd stay at home. So once I got into UCD I decided to stay at home, and was lucky to get into their scholarship scheme. It hasn't been easy. I finished my hospital rotation in June, and I'm doing my GP elective at the moment. The last rotation was in surgery, and started at 7.0 in the morning, and might finish at 5pm. After that I'd go to bed for an hour, then go training. That wasn't much fun so the plan from next March is to maybe take a year out."

It's hardly the life of an elite athlete, and more like something from the days of Roger Bannister. But with the illness and injury problems behind her, Cuddihy was determined to get a full winter's training into her legs.

National sprint coach Paddy Fay looks after her track work, but she also credits Lisa Regan of UCD's high performance facility for giving her the necessary groundwork in strength and conditioning.

"Lisa was fantastic for me," she adds. "She's had a few health problems recently and has had to go back to home to Canada, but I ended up spending some time out there with her last November and again in March. I had never seen a weights room before I went to college, and Lisa designed a whole programme for me, which I'm still very grateful for."

Her 51.28 currently ranks her 17th fastest in Europe - but 10 of those ahead of her are Russians, and they'll only have three athletes in Gothenburg next week.

She's improved with practically every race this summer - and definitely one of the in-form Irish athletes ready to take on the best in Europe.