Number comes up for O'Rourke

ATHLETICS/World Indoor Championships/Ian O'Riordan talks to Cork's Derval O'Rourke, who won World Championship gold in the 60-metre hurdles in Moscow on Saturday

World Indoor champion, 60-metre hurdles. Had we really listened to her, looked at her times a little closer, just watched the way she moves, maybe we shouldn't be at all surprised.

Had we trusted her coach Jim Kilty, read all the signs, and not laughed at the story of her race number, maybe we should have bet the house on it.

But World Indoor champion, 60-metre hurdles, for Ireland. Nah, believe it when it happens.

Only now, with the gold medal round her neck and $40,000 in her back pocket does it all add up. Derval O'Rourke, World Indoor champion, 60-metre hurdles.

But like any great tale of the unexpected it's taking a while to sink in. The race lasted less than eight seconds and on the night she made it look so easy.

Get out quickest, get over the hurdles without a hitch, and lurch at that line as if someone had demanded you won.

That she was the youngest and easily the least experienced of the eight finalists never came into it. O'Rourke simply dominated, every step of the way.

In fact the story of what happened inside Moscow's old Olympic palace on Saturday is one of perfection. She eased through her mid-morning heat, taking second to Michelle Freeman of Jamaica in 7.93 seconds. In the late afternoon she won her semi-final in 7.87, a national record, while Freeman crashed into the last hurdle, probably because of the pressure.

Two hours later she lined up for the final, cool as the Moscow air. And Ireland's small but notable hurdling tradition was to change forever. O'Rourke beat the very best the world has to offer, setting another Irish record, 7.84. Glory Alozie of Spain, who'd won Olympic silver for Nigeria in 2000, took second in 7.86, and Susanne Kallur of Sweden, the reigning European indoor champion, took third in 7.87. Okay that was close, but she also beat the top American Danielle Carruthers, fourth in 7.88, and the well-fancied German Kirsten Bolm, fifth in 7.93.

Yet four weeks ago O'Rourke hadn't broken eight seconds, so the how, why and when all this started coming about takes a bit of explaining.

"First of all everything went to plan over the winter," she says. "I didn't miss one training session, so I could finally build on things. And Jim has worked so, so hard with me over the past few years and always had great faith in me. Especially after things went so bad at the Athens Olympics.

"Then every session I was getting better over the past few weeks, and I was getting more confident. So coming here I didn't think there was any one girl could beat me. I came here to win. The only thing I was really surprised about was how relaxed I was.

"And I think three races in the one day actually suited me. Jim is always saying I'm a lot fitter than the other hurdlers, and that helped. Just last week I did six flat-out runs over five hurdles, and the last one was the fastest. After that he knew I'd get quicker as the day went on."

Yesterday, Kilty was throwing similar compliments back at her. He didn't make it to Moscow, but he was clearly there in spirit.

"Derval has always been an extremely dedicated athlete, and always looked to raise her standards," he said. "And she was the first person to say she could win here, not me."

There's no doubt that Kilty's great coaching brain masterminded this success. He recently called in one of his former hurdlers, the 1996 Olympian Seán Cahill, and together they took O'Rourke's technique apart. Something had to change if she was to maximise her natural speed.

She was running a little too high over the hurdles - but the real problem was her lead leg: it was too straight. Her back leg was also bending too much, reducing power. So rather than dart over the hurdles, she'd float over. She now takes the hurdles with her leg straight, and the same with the trail leg. That also means running with her hips held high. QED.

"Sometimes that still feels a little wrong," she admits, "and I want to go back to the old way. We went to Portugal for two weeks in January, and I'd done a lot of work with Seán before going there. Jim came out and had so much patience, working with me every single day. I know I'm 24 now but I swear I cried on the last day because I thought it was a complete disaster. It felt like I was getting slower, but he just kept saying over and over that it would come together."

O'Rourke's technique wasn't the only thing in her favour to come together in Moscow. When she collected her race number 140 on Friday she sent her team-mate Emily Maher into hysterics. Maher had also worn number 140 when winning a sprint double at the World Youth Olympics, also in Moscow, in 1998. She also ended up rooming with her good friend and training partner Ailis McSweeney, who stuck with her all day Saturday to keep her nerves in check.

It's still only eight years since O'Rourke started sprinting against her friends in Douglas, the Cork suburb where she grew up. When she got bored with that she thought the hurdles would be a little more exciting. One small step at the time, one giant leap for Irish athletics.

Men's 400 metres: Heat 1 - 5, D Gillick 47.61; Heat 5 - 2 D McCarthy 46.68 (q); Semi-final 2 - 6 McCarthy, 47.11: Men's 1,500 metres: Heat 3 - 1, J Nolan 3:44.67; Final - 6, Nolan, 3:43.98; Men's 3,000 metres: Heat 1 - 4, A Cragg 7:53.74 (q); Final - 4, Cragg, 7:46.43.

Women's 60 metres: Heat 3 - 5, A McSweeney 7.44 (q), Heat 4 - 4, E Maher 7.38 (q); Semi-final 1 - 5, Maher 7.37; Semi-final 3 - 7, McSweeney 7.42.

Women's 60 metres hurdles: Heat 3 - 2, D O'Rourke, 7.93; Semi-final 2 - 1, O'Rourke, 7.87; Final - 1, O'Rourke, 7.84; Women's 3,000 metres final: 10, M McCambridge, 9:07.26, 13 R McGettigan, 9:28.85.