Sonia O’Sullivan: Thomas Barr’s heroics resurrected a tired studio

We may be some 6,000 miles away from Rio de Janeiro in the RTÉ studios but you still get the sense you are in the Olympic bubble.

It’s certainly feels a bit like being at the Olympics in that anything else that is going on in the world right now is just a blur.

Since the athletics programme got underway, I have been absorbed in the RTÉ-lympics. The twice-daily routine revolves around the live action from Rio, which is four hours behind Ireland, which means operating during hours that I have rarely visited in recent times.

Your whole life is turned upside down, but once you enter the Olympic bubble, you adjust and adapt. Before you know it, your normal daily routine is long forgotten.

I have been sharing the stage with Jerry Kiernan, Derval O'Rourke and David Matthews. We all know what it's like to be a part of the Olympics, having all competed, and as a result we accept the challenges we are faced with and adapt accordingly.

Just like the athletes when they arrive at the Olympic village, it can take a couple of days to settle in and find your Olympic routine.

This will be my seventh Olympics where I am directly involved, my second watching from a distance. As an athlete, to perform at your best you need to balance your day sleeping, eating and training; it’s not too dissimilar when watching and interpreting the action from studio, as each 24-hour period needs to be balanced so that you can be at your best when analysing the Olympic performances by our athletes each day.

Also, like the Olympics, there are different teams in RTÉ to discuss each sport that we are involved with. Early in the week we had the swimmers for company, and we had expected to take turns with the boxing crew for a little longer. However, their involvement came to an unexpected and controversial end, given the early exit from the Games by all Irish boxers.

On Tuesday, we left our seats as the quietly confident sailing team came to relish in the glory of Annalise Murphy’s silver medal.

Derval and I took the option to walk back into town, but had to stop into Kiely’s in Donnybrook to catch the action on the big screen and cheer Annalise to Ireland’s second silver medal at these Games.

With another medal in the bag, we walked back to the hotel with an extra spring in our step, grabbing a bite to eat, a few hours preparation and then a sneaky nap, before heading back out to RTÉ for the midnight session.

Adrenalin

It was day five, halfway through the athletics programme, and we were looking ahead to Thomas Barr in his semi-final of the 400m hurdles.

After five days in studio the energy levels were dropping, but we were positive that Thomas had a very good chance to progress. What we didn’t predict was the boost of energy and adrenalin that we would get when he created history to win his semi-final, and qualify as the first Irish man in 84 years to make an Olympic 400m hurdles final, or indeed any sprint event final.

We were buzzing in studio, and the tiredness that was drifting in and out all week was banished, as we signed off on one of the great nights in Irish Olympic history.

It wasn’t just the result but the manner in which Thomas attacked the race: he rose to the occasion, broke his Irish record in the process and allowed us all to believe once more and have faith in the goodness of sport.

After another five hours sleep I took a long walk around to my favourite coffee shop on Lower Grand Canal Street.

It’s never easy to get in a spot of exercise when working odd hours like this, and operating on limited sleep. I’m always looking for an hour in the day to escape the constant flow of information that comes with each day’s action, reflecting on results and looking ahead to the next day.

To save some time, I picked up a Dublin bike for a little cruise back along the canal, still on a high from the night before, knowing I had to get back to prepare for day six, and what lay ahead for Team Ireland and the RTÉ-lympics crew.

We arrive at the studio one hour before going live on air: then it’s time to decide what to wear, then up to make-up, a daily ritual I will never get used to. It’s all part of life on TV.

We are given start lists and detailed information for the next session, wired up with microphones and then we await our call to the hot seats: will it be the couch or behind the desk?

Lack of sleep

It can start to get a little bit like groundhog day. Then you have nights like day five, when you jump out of your seat at 1:40am. Everything that you have done to be here, the lack of sleep, the limited exercise, the weird eating hours, are all so worthwhile.

You can’t wait to be back here again, some 36 hours later, with the same energy and belief that as good as this achievement is for Thomas Barr to reach the Olympic final, there is one more chance for Thomas to create his own small piece of history.

For Irish athletics, for Irish sports fans, we need this. We need to believe that there is goodness in sport, that greatness in athletics still exists at the very basic level, and local heroes will be rewarded on the Olympic stage once more.