ATHLETICS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS:IN THE end the only real disappointment wasn't so much that medals never materialised but that Derval O'Rourke never got her proper shot at winning one. It's sometimes a hard call between success and failure at the World Championships, and Daegu certainly served up the Irish athletes with a combination of both.
Whatever hopes Alistair Cragg may have held for saving the best until last ended about halfway through yesterday’s 5,000 metres, when he was suddenly dropped from the leaders. So, while Britain’s Mo Farah produced a stunning victory in 13:34.33, Cragg trailed home 14th and next to last in 13:45.33 – and making the final was as good as it got for him.
Farah thus becomes the first European winner of the event since Eamonn Coghlan won the title at the inaugural championships in Helsinki, 28 years ago – while Cragg’s future now surely lies with the marathon.
Still, Saturday’s finals will be recalled in a more positive sense for Deirdre Ryan’s tie for sixth in the women’s high jump, and Ciarán O’Lionaird’s 10th in the men’s 1,500m – still our best ever placing in the blue riband event.
Unfortunately they were somewhat overshadowed as O’Rourke was forced to withdraw from her semi-final of the 100m hurdles – and with that came an abrupt end to her ambitions of repeating her 2009 final appearance, where she finished fourth.
Indeed O’Rourke could easily have qualified, had a calf muscle injury not flared up, although the way Australia’s Sally Pearson later won the gold in 12.28 seconds, with the Americans Danielle Carruthers and Dawn Harper second and third in 12.47, O’Rourke would probably have found the medals out of reach. But 12.84 had been good enough to make the final, and that was well within O’Rourke’s range.
What happened was she felt a slight twinge in her calf during Friday’s semi-final, and after the race it tightened up considerably, indicating she had sustained a minor tear. She tried warming up for her semi-final, but 10 seconds before being called to the track, she made the desperately hard decision not to run – and was understandably gutted given her season to date had been injury free.
However Ryan and O’Lionaird will look back on their season with great fondness, and particularly O’Lionaird, who at age 23 has announced his arrival as a serious contender on the world stage, and like Ryan can’t wait for the London Olympics to roll around. Having surpassed all expectations to make the final, O’Lionaird kept himself in the mix for as long as possible, but a last-lap burn-up – run in 51 seconds – was never really going to suit him. Asbel Kiprop finally ended the Kenyan jinx in the event by winning in 3:35.69, although O’Lionaird wasn’t far back, in 3:37.81.
“I’d be a bit disappointed to be beaten by nine guys,” he admitted with typical honesty, “But I’d be very greedy if I said I wasn’t happy with the season overall. The negative, maybe, is I didn’t get a medal. That’s in your mind, has to be, when you make a final. I covered every move, but maybe too enthusiastically. These guys are top class. I needed the perfect race. I had a decent race.
“But the positive is I’ve made a massive step forward this summer, and got a ton of experience for London next year. My heats and semi-final showed me I’m not afraid of anybody out there. I’ve been nearly four years out of the sport, and only back running proper for 12 months. I want to put another year together, keep the same mentality, and come out next year and beat them.”
“I have a certain level of respect for the competition, but I don’t hold these guys up on a pedestal. I’ll take my break, have some fun, but when I start back in the autumn the only thing that will be on my mind will be getting out there and beating these guys.”
The only disappointment for Ryan was she came so close to clearing 1.97m, which would have again improved her Irish record and possibly kept her in the hunt for a medal.
Still, she again cleared 1.93, which had been her Irish record coming to Daegu, before she jumped 1.95 in qualifying.
“Yeah, I have to be really,” she said, “and really enjoyed it. It was nerve-racking, to be out there in the final, but I managed to keep it together. It was very close at 1.97. My second and third attempts were good. The third attempt was really good . . . and yes, it will give me nightmares, it was so close.”
As well as the nice ring to being the sixth best high jumper in the world (tying with China’s Xingjuan Zheng), Ryan also gets the small, but not unwanted, reward of $6,000 (€4,180) prize money.
Russian Anna Chicherova clinched the gold medal with 2.03 on a count back from Blanka Vlasic, to end the Croatian’s four-year reign as world champion.
