Race will mark GAA link with athletics

IT IS often forgotten that the twin ambitions in the founding of the Gaelic Athletic Association in 1884 were to revive hurling and to reorganise athletics.

Given the current state of those sports – only three teams capable of winning the All-Ireland hurling title this decade, and athletics as disorganised as ever – it could be said they’ve failed on both counts.

The GAA, of course, has succeeded in countless other ways, and while they have long since dropped their association with Irish athletics, that history will be celebrated at a special event in Croke Park as part of the All-Ireland football semi-final on August 23rd – featuring Ireland’s fastest man, and one-time hurler, Paul Hession.

At half-time in the game, a relay team of athletes and former GAA county stars will represent their province in a 5x100 yards relay race, which promises to be hotly-contested, or at least a good laugh.

The team will be captained by Ireland’s elite athletes including Hession, Derval O’Rourke and David Gillick, who are flying back a day early from the World Championships in Berlin to be part of the event (it won’t clash with any of their potential finals).

“I was brought up with the GAA, being from Athenry,” says Hession, “and I still see the GAA as an institution in rural Ireland. All of Ireland. To be part of that, to run in Croke Park, is something I never thought would be possible.

“It’s quite exciting, and should be good fun. It’s not often you get the chance to run in front of 80,000 Irish people, so it was hard to say no. It’s about getting a bigger audience for our sport as well, because it needs it. I suspect most of the crowd in Croke Park won’t know much about athletics.

“The history is there with the GAA, in that it used to be the governing body, and I suppose it has been lost. They went separate ways, but the links go way back, even the Táilteann Games here in Croke Park. It would be nice to get those links back, to some extent.”

Hession has run in many of the biggest stadiums in the world, including the Bird’s Nest in Beijing at last year’s Olympics – but reckons Croke Park will have an atmosphere of its own: “It’s a different mindset. But at the same time it should be some spectacle. It’s going to be something different anyway. I’ll have to put my long spikes in, 15mm. I haven’t raced on grass in a long time. Probably back in Mosney.”

In the relay, Leinster will be captained by Gillick, O’Rourke will captain Munster, Hession will lead the Connacht team, while Antrim’s Anna Boyle, Ireland’s top female sprinter, will lead out Ulster. Each provincial team will be made up of top two male and female athletes and two former GAA football stars.

GAA president Christy Cooney predicted both a novel and worthwhile event. “It is appropriate that in this, the 125th year of the GAA, we acknowledge the importance of athletics in the early years of the GAA,” he said, “and the tremendous work of Michael Cusack and Maurice Davin in establishing an independent platform for athletics in this country. We hope that this event will mark the beginning of renewed and closer links between Gaelic Games and athletics.”

Hession, meanwhile, runs over 200 metres at the London Grand Prix this Saturday, against the American Tyson Gay (Usain Bolt is only running the 100 meters) as part of his countdown to Berlin, where he hopes to make the final – having come within one place of doing so in Beijing.

“My focus for now is the World Championships, and then I’ll think about Croke Park. I’d be as confident though of making the final in Berlin. I think I got my timing perfect in Beijing, but it’s probably going to be harder.

“You’ll have four Americans, because Tyson Gay is allowed in as defending champion. I think this is the strongest ever year for 200 metres. You have young lads running 20.0, and Gay and Bolt both running 19.5, this year. But I have to be as confident as last year.”

Hession is not the only one seeking a final – and he talked up a big show by Gillick having seen him run two sub-45 seconds over 400 metres this year: “Make sure you’re in Berlin for that final, because that bronze medal is wide open. If David just plays it right . . . He’s number four in the world, and there’s no one other than LaShawn Merritt and Jeremy Wariner that he can’t beat.”