Athens, and in the still heat of another athletics day we inhale the light scent of deja vu. A tunnel beneath a stadium. A mixed zone press area. Athletes and journalists and cameras and the usual chaos. And also Sonia O'Sullivan's quiet tears. Been here before girl, been here before.
We hacks gaze at her, lost for questions or words of solace. We had asked all the questions a year previously in Atlanta. She looks back at us, wet eyed and alert, taking our faces in like a woman who will be able to recall to police just what the intruders looked like.
We journalists are on one side of a steel barrier. She is on the other. On the good days, in Gothenburg and other happy tracks, we have leaned over barriers and enjoyed the conceit that we know her, that we know Sonia and that our presence as Irish journalists might somehow be cheering for her. Here, in this stark concrete place, we lean over the railings and look at her and she is the loneliest woman on the planet. We make sympathetic gestures and then run off to explain in 600 words or less why there will be no ole ole ole today folks. The front page doesn't want anything from the World Athletics championships in Athens today, thanks.
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