Irish Independent 2 SportGaelic Games Saturday 5 August 2017

EXCLUSIVE:JoeCanningopensupaboutshoulderingGalway’sexpectations,lifeinthespotlight

HAT if the wrong consequences of those visits was his team just keeps body shedding large quantities of winning? What if the takes a sideline cut fluid. evening cheers rolling in front of then Galway manager “Whatever he was doing to me, I up out of Croke Park in 2013 seemed to be on the toilet the whole W tomorrow come from time, p***ing. I was just getting rid of and (inset below) is helped off Tipperary lungs and Joe Canning soon the pitch by the team doctor excess water and I’d say I lost about slips into his 30th year, the light still during last year’s All-Ireland a stone in that time,” he remembers. on amber for his All-Ireland hopes? semi-final defeat to Tipperary “He was just cracking my back and What if this story simply isn’t destined stuff. I was all tight and had bad to crest with a September climb up the posture and, because of that, seemed Hogan? to be retaining excess water inside of It’s almost a decade now since we in me. I was probably blocked up a little the media, like a College of Cardinals, bit. took to welcoming a new Pope. Joe hit “So I lost a lot of weight then and the summer of’ 08 like a hurricane, that continued into 2010 and 2011. scoring 2-12 for Galway against Cork By 2012,I was down to my lightest in Thurles. Just 19 and only his second ever. I mean going down to him, I senior Championship game. The rest was probably 16 stone. It was too of the Galway team summoned three much. But I remember we played St points between them. Thomas’s in a (Galway) semi-final in Those who’d been in Semple 2013 and I was 88kg then, the lightest Stadium that day acquired the status I’d been in a long time. Just under 14 of eye-witnesses. The big kid just went stone. barrelling into Cork like an angry “I’m back up to 92kg now because weather front and very nearly won I’d probably lost too much. And I’m the game for a team that all but didn’t happy with that. Like, I’d be one of show. the lightest bigger lads in the Galway In the nine summers since, panel now, even if I still look a bit Canning’s excellence has been a heavier than others. constant but, at some point, our “But seeing him was a big turning narrative tilted. We took to wondering point for my physique.” if he might simply be cursed to be He has had his injury setbacks remembered as the most gifted hurler along the way since, none more never to win the Liam MacCarthy. challenging than the chronic This isn’t his trade, his job, his hamstring tear that forced him out livelihood, yet that is how he’s found of last year’s All-Ireland semi-final himself judged endlessly. against Tipperary. The Galway As if the old game represented the physios had been able to tell him only point of his existence. instantly that the injury would We meet in Oranmore, nine require surgery, but Canning years on from our first interview. admits he did not fully process The timing isn’t his preference. An that information until presenting original plan to speak the week after himself into Eanna Falvey’s clinic the the Leinster final was re-worked for following Monday week. our convenience. It feels important to He had no power in the leg and record that. late that year and there were a few E sits now in T-shirt and shorts, found it painful to sit on, yet found The years have brought a games that I didn’t play in. I don’t sipping constantly from a litre himself clinging to the forlorn hope conspicuous physical sharpening know why. But lads kept asking me bottle of water. At 6ft 2in and that aggressive physiotherapy H92kg (14st 7oz), Canning’s might resolve the problem. of Joe’s body, but in other ways he VINCENT ‘Are you captain again this year?’ is unchanged. In conversation, he “Dad was asking me at home. athleticism is palpable. His frame has “Until I actually sat in Eanna’s seldom takes refuge in cliche. He is ‘What’s the story?’ And I’m ‘I don’t been re-shaped by the imperatives room and he said to me ‘When both interested and interesting, armed HOGAN know...’ facing the modern GAA county man can we get this surgery done?’, with the ice-pick-sharp self-awareness “Because I played one or two and it seems startling to consider that it hadn’t really registered with of a man whose every sporting matches in the League then and I in the soaring skyline of Galway’s me. disappointment seems to draw the wasn’t captain. So many people were attack, he is far from the most “Suddenly, I was kind of clucking of a thousand tongues. is said in town over a few pints on a didn’t score from play in the last two asking, it was getting to me. Because imposing now. sitting there, going ‘F**k!’ For most of his career, Galway Saturday night, that’s it. We’ll often matches and people are like ‘Jesus, I honestly didn’t know. Usually, it’s Canning’s frame has changed with He was operated on in defeats have been personalised into have arguments about stuff like that he was non-existent!’ You can’t really announced at the start of the year, the years and it had to. In the first half Cork the following Tuesday, audits on his game. Then somebody and that’s just him being my father, win, but you come to accept that as but it was never really announced. So of his career, his weight was an issue turning up at had the bright idea of putting his wanting me to be better. I’d be a you get a little bit older. I rang and he (Cunningham) never and he is disarmingly open about the training that evening on image, in giant form, on the side of bit worried if he came in to me on a “Nobody really knew Mam and really said I was or I wasn’t. He was route he took to change. crutches and with a knee the team bus. “Oh I hate that,” he says Monday and said ‘You did fine the last Dad were sick, apart from people just ‘Well, we’ll see in a while…’. It was the season of 2009 and he’d brace that would remain in now unequivocally. “I don’t want that. day, just do that again…’ close to it. It wasn’t a public thing. “Then was captain for been struggling for some time with place for the next six weeks. I wanted it changed at the time. But “He’d rather we’d score 36 or 37 I’d be very close to Mam especially, a few games and continued. And that’s the heel condition plantar fasciitis. “I couldn’t straighten my who was I to say take it down or not? points with me adding four or five because I’m the baby in the family. the way it filtered out. I was never The problem became compounded leg for those six weeks until That sort of stuff, I don’t need, like.” from play and have lads coming up to When I was growing up, she brought actually told, ‘Listen, we’re changing by sciatica and, with Galway due to they were happy the wound Because it adds to the cliche about it him after, saying ‘Jesus he was flying me everywhere. Dad would bring the the captain!’ And that was a big blow I play a Leinster Championship semi- had healed,” he reflects now. only being about Joe? today!’I get that. That’s what every older guys to their games but with suppose to my confidence. final against Kilkenny in Tullamore, “The tendon had been stitched “Yeah, yeah, yeah, one hundred per parent wants. And we’ll have it out, see me, it was always Mam and my sister “It’s probably selfish to say it, but Canning was struggling to track down back. Like,I had to even wear cent. You know that perception was each other’s points. Deirdre. I’m obviously named after her it’s the truth. It was the first time I’d a solution. He’d got insoles and plasma the brace in bed because, if I out there. But I think it’s gone now “Maybe I wouldn’t see his as much as well. been captain of nearly anything. The injections, visiting just about every straightened my leg, I could for the last number of years and I’m a as he’d see mine (laughing), but that’s “When the two of them got sick, it only other times were my last years at specialist familiar to the broader GAA have ripped the stitches open. lot happier with that. Because, f**k it, part and parcel of it too.” hit me hard. Like, people often ask me minor and U-21. And I knew for years community. “I was unlucky that it was that’s not me. Some weeks ago, Canning was why do I play . Why do you do that captaincy didn’t sit well with me.” Then a friend in Cork recommended so severe, yet lucky too that “Like, I come from a big family. I giving a talk to school kids when, it? I do it for Mam and Dad, to make How exactly? a Scottish chiropractor, Ian Law, based it wasn’t worse. There was know better than anyone that you almost unwittingly, he found himself them feel proud. To see the smile on “I don’t know, I suppose I grew up in Carrigaline. A recommendation a centimetre and a half still have to earn your crust and get on drawn towards a personal confession. their faces after a game. Like every with Ollie being captain for years that changed everything. attached to the bone and with other people to be a success. I For years, the compulsion to meet young person,I probably took what with the club. And it struck me that “I got all the usual warnings you get then it retracted down four remember having it out actually with others’ expectations became a little my parents did for granted. But their he always said the right things at about chiropractors, people telling me centimetres. It’s like an elastic Mam and Dad one day. Just telling suffocating and joyless, a ritual in sickness made me appreciate what the right time. That was probably ‘Don’t go near them!’ he reflects now. band or whatever. So you just them that I wasn’t enjoying it, that I service to the idea that every big they did for me a lot more. ingrained in me more than anything… “But I just thought ‘I’ve nothing to lose attach it back onto the bone. was sick of that perception that was hurling game must, by necessity, be “That’s the growing up part for me I I felt I could never be the same as him here’. But let’s say that centimetre out there. For a few years, every time some kind of flashlight to his soul. suppose. I don’t know if it’s changing as captain. I tried to and that was In a single week, Canning was and a half came off the bone we lost, it was nearly on my head. Then, within a few short months from a child to an adult or what...” probably the wrong thing to do. seen 21 times by Law, the results so too, that the whole thing was “When we won, it was great. But, in 2015, both parents were diagnosed “Looking back,I probably wouldn’t profound he would continue visiting gone, they say more than likely when we lost, it was the worst ever.” HAT summer of 2015 comes have taken it now. But then again, the practice for years to come. One it’d have taken a bit of the bone To some extent, that summer of ’08 back to him now, laden with would I have ever got the chance of the immediate off as well. set Canning a vicious trap. It turned heavy energies. He was just again? Captain of Galway is a huge “So that’s never going to sit back his story into a pageant. He became Tpipped by Cathal Mannion as honour, like. You can’t turn it down.” perfectly on the bone. That’s what the kid who was permitted no frailties. Galway’s top scorer from play in a Living in Dublin at the time happened Paul O’Connell. It’s like a “Probably hitting that 2-12 against Championship campaign that took probably didn’t help him in the piece of jigsaw that doesn’t quite fit. Cork was the worst thing I ever did,” them all the way to September. But role, and hindsight gives him an So I was lucky in a way. I mean I never he says flatly now. “At that age… it set PROBABLY HITTING Canning’s recall of it is that he was easy understanding now of why once thought that I wouldn’t play standards different to everybody else.” THAT 2-12 AGAINST judged to have “had a bad year”. Cunningham might have favoured again. Standards he would become CORK WAS THE Certainly, it was a campaign that came a change. But the execution of the “Like, I’d heard stuff, I was told I chained to. to challenge him in more personal decision left something to be mightn’t. But the competitor in me WORST THING I EVER ways than he’d known previously. desired. would always want to prove people VEN now, even this summer DID… AT THAT AGE… Having been Galway captain in “Just the way it was done,” wrong in that.” with the new, thrilling 2014, he lost the role without any he stresses. “I wouldn’t mind The early prognosis was that, at democracy of Galway’s attacking IT SET STANDARDS communication from management for if I was told, ‘Listen, we don’t best, it would take Canning seven or Eplay, Canning can’t quite escape DIFFERENT TO the reason. He’d considered turning think this is working, we’re eight months to get back playing. He the sense of being judged differently. the position down when Anthony going to go with somebody managed to crack a comeback inside The Monday before the Leinster final, EVERYBODY ELSE Cunningham first mooted the idea, else...’ One hundred per six. his dad, Sean, told him he’d need to worried that it might deepen the cent,I could take that, no “I nearly fell out with the boys “improve” on his performance against with cancer, his mother Josephine intensity of focus upon him. When problem. It’s just I was (physios) a couple of times because Offaly. Why? Joe had not registered a with breast, Sean with prostate. he’d sought the counsel of two never told really or given they wouldn’t let me train,” he score from play in Galway’s 19-point Thankfully both are doing fine now, brothers, Frank and Ollie, they too a reason why. And I accept remembers. “Looking back, it was win. but those months served to recalibrate expressed their reservations. it might sound selfish to say obviously the right thing from them. “He was seeing this in the paper, a lot of things inside Joe Canning’s “But then… to be asked to captain it knocked me, but that’s I was constantly on to them ‘Lads, I that I’d had a bad match or whatever,” head. your county doesn’t happen very human nature. feel fine, let me back out!’ They had Canning remembers now. “Dad was Things he found himself exploring often…” “It probably knocked to hold me back a little bit because, at the match himself and we’d scored with those school kids. Galway’s 2014 campaign had Mam and Dad as obviously, I wasn’t right. 33 points against a team playing two “It’s embarrassing for me to say it,” petered out with a late All-Ireland well. They were “I could have wrecked it.” sweepers and two midfielders pulled he reflects now “but it probably took qualifier meltdown against Tipperary asking ‘Why aren’t deep, a team playing practically ten Mam and Dad being sick to make me in Thurles and, when they regrouped you captain?’ People ALWAY, OF COURSE, finished backs. appreciate life and appreciate that the following season, there was no were asking them just a solitary point short of “I was trying to argue my case that, hurling isn’t the be-all and end-all. mention of who would be captain. too. And I’m ‘I don’t Tipp last August, Canning if we score 33 points on the day, does it It seems a bit foolish looking back, Had he seen the demotion coming? know!’ The normal thing Gand Adrian Tuohy both really matter who gets what? But Dad thinking ‘What were you putting “I wasn’t told, no.” is a captaincy lasts two incapacitated for the second half, then being Dad and me being his son, he yourself under so much pressure for?’ So how did he hear? or three years unless the watched their neighbours jump all over wants me to do well... Or letting the public get to me more “I had to ring and ask,” he management changes. But Kilkenny in a one-sided All-Ireland “And he’s old school, he grew up than anything else. remembers now. “For some reason, the management didn’t change. final. in a generation where whatever is in “Like, I realise that there’s different I don’t know if I was injured or “And, yeah,I found that tough.” It was paltry consolation to a the paper must be true. Or whatever standards that I’m judged on. I something, but I’d come back a little group now under pitiless scrutiny ‘Losingthecaptaincy knockedmy confidence…justthe w Irish Independent Saturday 5 August 2017 Gaelic Games Sport 3

andhow managerialchangetransformedtheteam Tribesmen on a high but Tipp can from their own. The player-driven UT WHAT IF THE wrong team removal of Cunningham as manager just keeps winning? Galway have soon after their 2015 final defeat left appeared in three All-Ireland keep two-in-a-row them in a cold environment, the stark Bfinals during Joe Canning’s reality of which now came home time, drawing one and losing two. to bear in February. When Galway The energy around their replay spurned a six-point lead against against Kilkenny in 2012 switched Wexford to effectively blow their profoundly when his shot rebounded ambitions alive National League promotion chance, off the butt of a Canal end upright and, the Salthill acoustic turned ugly. within seconds, Kilkenny sniped a Hill “We got a fair doing from a lot of end goal. local journalists after that,” reflects Such small moments can define Canning now. “That was worse, I careers, he understands that. ALL-IRELANDSHSEMI-FINAL felt, than any loss in a long time. It What he argues is that they can’t was a sickening one for a while. Just define a person. the reaction to it and what we were Funny how this inter-county life can GALWAYVTIPPERARY described as I suppose…” so corrupt perspective. Recently, he CROKEPARK,4.0 He doesn’t deny that the attended a Gavin James concert in The Ref– BKelly(Westmeath) Cunningham story would have Big Top and was helping his girlfriend LiveonRTE&SkySports stiffened local anger. bring down drinks from the bar when a “Oh yeah, but that’s an easy thing,” fellow punter intercepted him with the says Canning. “Like, Clare players caution ‘Jaysus Joe don’t be drinking LASTFIVECHAMPIONSHIPCLASHES didn’t want Davy, but there was little all those!’ enough about it. It was fine. There’s Canning, as it happens, was drinking 2016:Tipperary2-19Galway2-18(All-Irelandsemi-final) lots of other counties that that coffee. happened to in the last few years and But that’s the perverse groove of a 2015:Galway0-26Tipperary3-16(All-Irelandsemi-final) it was fine. county man’s existence now. Feeling “It was just an easy stick to beat us answerable to strangers. 2014:Tipperary3-25Galway4-13(All-Irelandqualifier) with. But, like, you live and die by the “The balance is wrong,” he says sword. And that’s fine if that’s what flatly. “Like before the third Lions 2010:Tipperary3-17Galway3-16(All-Irelandquarter-final) they want to go back to the whole Test, there were pictures of the players 2005:Galway2-20Tipperary2-18(All-Irelandquarter-final) time, fine. Fair enough. But we’ve drinking beer. After Ireland beat moved on. You have to. That was done Italy at the Euros last year, there were two years ago, so that was a tough pictures of them slugging bottles in the HEADTOHEAD:MIDFIELDERS one to take, especially from local dressing-room. It was accepted. media. “I’m in Limerick a lot now (where “But you know, nobody was he is a partner in the Camile Thai thinking about the sixth of August restaurant) and you’ll see Munster back then. And you can understand players out after a PRO12 game, having that in a way as well. It seems a long a few beers, nothing major. It’s fine, it’s time ago now, but that hit us tough accepted. But the amateur athlete does as a group. It was something that that and it’s frowned upon. we didn’t really want to experience “Because of that, the culture in the again.” GAA is for lads to go on the p*ss for a Five weeks later, Galway would day or two after a big game. And that’s find themselves ten points down totally wrong for both your body and JOHNNYCOEN MICHAELBREEN on the same field in a quarter-final your mind. They end up sick for nearly against an experimenting Waterford, a week afterwards because they feel Loughrea Club Ballina yet ended up winning by three. And they have to go ballistic. 26 Age 23 nobody has managed to lay a glove on “I’m not for a second recommending 2011 C’shipDebut 2015 them since. a drink culture, but the balance is so What has changed? wrong. You’re always kind of on edge 0 All-IrelandSHtitles 1 “We kind of took it on ourselves now when you’re out. You’re almost 2 Provincialtitles 2 as players on the pitch more than paranoid. And that’s wrong too.” 1 AllStars 0 anything,” he suggests. “In years Tipperary on the horizon again naturally concentrates the mind now. Especially so for any son of Portumna, PATHSTOTHES-FINAL separated, as they are, from Lorrha GALWAY only by the width of the Shannon. But Canning approaches the Galway2-28Dublin1-17(Leinsterq/f) challenge, comfortable in his own skin. Galway0-33Offaly1-11(Leinsters/f) THERE’S NOT THAT He’s been to Syria and Swaziland in Galway0-29Wexford1-17(Leinsterf) recent times with UNICEF and reckons MANY YEARS LEFT he has a fair handle on perspective. TopScorers IN ME AT INTER- “This is hurling at the end of the JCanning0-26(19f,1‘65s,1s/l);CCooney1-12;CWhelan0-12 day,” he says quietly. “When I said COUNTY… IF I DON’T recently that it won’t define me, I had TIPPERARY FEEL I’M UP TO IT people asking me ‘Why don’t you take Cork2-27Tipperary1-26(Munsterq/f) NEXT YEAR, THAT it seriously?’ I do take it seriously, but what defines me is how I am seen by Tipperary2-28Westmeath0-15(Qualifiers) COULD BE WHEN I my family more than anything else. Tipperary6-26Dublin1-19(Qualifiers) GO Like my family don’t look at my medals Tipperary0-28Clare3-16(All-Irelandq/f) at home. I don’t even know where the medals are. TopScorers gone by, we’d probably have “Perspective is lost on so many SCallanan3-29(0-18f,0-1‘65’)JMcGrath4-10 just played out the match. things in Irish society, it’s crazy!” JO’Dwyer1-13(0-2f,0-1s/l) ‘Ah it’s grand!’ Accept we So Joe Canning ten years from now, couldn’t turn it round. with or without a Celtic Cross? What But I remember lads like does he envisage? FACT: Intheirlastninemeetingsthewinningmargin David Burke and Johnny “Just someone happy and healthy hasbeenonepointonfouroccasions,twopointsthree Coen being very vocal and, hopefully, with a business that I timesandthreepointsonce.Theonlybigwin on the field. can work in for the rest of my life,” he wasin2014whenTipperaryhadninepointstospare “And that was a says. “Maybe a family and marriage Odds:Galway10/11Tipperary11/10Draw9/1 huge, huge turning too. I’ll be 38, so still hurling? I don’t point in our season. know. Like,I see Ollie still going at 41, Because, obviously, if but he’s just a different animal. we didn’t win that we “Like there’s not that many years left were out of the League. in me at inter-county.I could have been And it was a long time gone last year. I’ll be 29 in October and from then till the you don’t see too many boys playing Championship game past 30 now. against Dublin.” “It all depends on how my body is The fear, of and if I’m playing well enough to get Martin Breheny tomorrow. course, is that picked by management. The Tipperary attack will feel the ‘difference’ “But I don’t want to go out on FIFTEEN weeks ago Tipperary they have a lot to prove after in this Galway anybody else’s terms either. If I don’t went into the Allianz hurling their wipe-out in the League team proves feel I’m up to it next year, that could be League final at 4/7 to beat final so Galway defenders illusory. Canning when I go. Galway (7/4). Tomorrow, Galway can expect a much different understands that. “If it’s two years or three years or start as slight favourites challenge to anything they But he believes in four years and I feel I can still offer (10/11) to beat the All-Ireland experienced so far this summer. what he sees as the trust something to the panel, then I’m all for champions (11/10). For example, Tipperary Micheál Donoghue has it. But if I feel that I’m only there as a So what happened in the hoisted far too many high been investing in the players token gesture... that’s not me. I won’t interim to sway public sentiment deliveries in Gearoid this year, the sense of giving be hanging around. I don’t like people to such a degree and is it McInerney’s direction in the people time. kind of feeling sorry for me or being justified? The answer rests with League final, so expect a more “In years gone by,I suppose nice to me for the sake of it. Galway’s 16-point win in the ground-based approach around if you weren’t going well, you’d be “I don’t appreciate that at all. I’m the League final, their subsequent him this time. whipped off straight away,” Canning same as anybody else.I like to earn my comfortable run through If the Galway defence has reflects. “Like, remember Conor stripes.” Leinster, Tipperary’s defeat by plenty to fear from Tipperary’s Cooney got brought on in an All- Cork and continued problems frontline, the same applies at the Ireland final and was taken off again with their defensive solidity. other end. Ever more so, unless after a few minutes. Conor is one of As to whether that there’s a marked improvement the best forwards in Ireland, he has combination is enough to justify in the full-back line, which was everything. And you can see him Galway’s favouritism depends on easily unhinged by Galway, Cork flourishing now because he has that your perspective. Personally, I and, more recently, Clare. confidence from management. have doubts. “Like, I just think that it’s a Galway’s League final win was RESPONDED different culture that we have now. so comprehensive that it cannot They need a massive It’s more about the players stepping be ignored, but neither should it improvement to have a realistic up. I think they have more… not BordGaisEnergy– Hurlingtothe be overvalued. chance against a Galway attack authority, but ownership of the thing. CoreandproudsponsoroftheGAA Tipperary were without that averaged 1-28 in their last There’s more communication. We’re All-IrelandSeniorHurlingChampionship Seamus Callanan; ‘Bonner’ five games. Interestingly, they a little more mature. A lot of the guys JoeCanningisaBordGáisEnergy Maher was easing his way back failed to score a goal against are 23, 24 or 25. #HurlingToTheCoreambassador. after returning from overseas Offaly or Wexford but then both “Like I’m one of the oldest!” army duty, attackers John had packed their defences. McGrath and ‘Bubbles’ O’Dwyer Galway responded suffered a rare double-misfire, intelligently by picking points while the defence imploded. from long range, which helped Galway played well but take their total for the two this certainly wasn’t the games to 0-62. real Tipperary. The defeat With the exception of the clearly hit their confidence, League final, the Tipperary which Cork subsequently attack has been very productive Joe Canning leaves the pitch with exploited. Still, Tipperary are too. Even when losing against the Leinster SHC trophy but can he back in the semi-final and, as Cork, they scored 1-26, a total get his hands on the one he really defending champions, will be that wins more games than it wants - the Liam MacCarthy Cup thinking more of their better loses. performances than the setbacks The similarity in scores ‘Losingthecaptaincy knockedmy against Galway and Cork. (Galway 0-26 Tipperary 3-16 in Galway had a trouble-free 2015; Tipperary 2-19 Galway 2-18 run through Leinster beating last year) underlines just how becalmed Dublin, out-of-their- evenly matched the sides are. depth Offaly and emerging And while the past isn’t always Wexford. Michael Donoghue’s a reliable guide to the future, men looked ultra-efficient all there’s no reason to believe it the way but one game against won’t be very close again. Kilkenny might have been more Public opinion is leaning revealing about Galway that that towards a Galway win but it entire campaign. should not be forgotten that tthe wayitwasdone’ All three played sweepers, Tipperary are the reigning which allowed Galway to have an champions and well capable of extra defender too. It made for a restoring the power than took relatively easy life but it did not them there. They could switch prepare them for the one-on- it on and keep the two-in-a-row one battles they will encounter dream alive. Irish Independent 52 SportBoxing Monday 28 August 2017 ‘Dancepartners’ profitfromthe perfectscript ‘I feel like I lost a football match not a fight,’ insists defiant McGregor after managing to escape with reputation intact

HE ring was still thronged as the rich people emptied out of their $10,000 seats, a fragrant train of the VINCENT varnished and bejewelled, Thurrying away towards the next evening curiosity. They looked HOGAN pleased in the way of opera-goers exiting before a second encore. IN LAS VEGAS The fight had been believable, a contest stretching further into the Dave Moretti. The other judges, hours later – through lips almost blue Nevada night than the majority had Burt Clements and Guido Cavalleri, from the rumbling air conditioning. thought possible. And you had to had the fight scored eight rounds to In its starkest terms, this was think this was the Vegas of Bugsy one in Mayweather’s favour before a fight with no basis in logic. A Siegel’s dreams.A gathering of money McGregor was rescued from the debutant looking to make a mockery and darkness canyoned into some big American’s whistling gloves just over of boxing against somebody once Strip palace, millionaires and movie a minute into round 10. considered the best pound-for-pound stars moving from one electric sign to By then, McGregor was just pugilist on the planet. another; like from The Flamingo to pawing into a blur of leather, his head Mayweather, who would remind us The Dunes; Sinatra to Dean Martin. snapping back far too often even for that he’d been “a millionaire by 20 or For this was, above all, a show. the taste of the most blasé paying 21”, against McGregor, who as John A piece of surreal, high-price customers. Kavanagh recalls, could not draw “a entertainment. And, as we knew it would, the end sponsor for a tub of protein” until the The high rollers would be well over decommissioned what had been a UFC tuned in to his charm. Conor McGregor by the time he made pageant of vulgarity. By the time On some level, maybe we always his own exit from the T-Mobile Arena, McGregor joined Mayweather at the understood the fictitious side of just after 12.40am, in the back of a post fight press-conference, a glass in it, seeing through the flaccid pulp white Rolls Royce – wife, baby and a one hand, a bottle labelled ‘Notorious quality of the trash-talk. bottle of whiskey for company. Irish Whiskey’ in the other, the two And yet, as a fight, it held He left by a trade gate, as boxers fighters had taken to spontaneous attention. Sure, there were times often do, out past forklift trucks and hugging and fist-pumping. when Mayweather’s efforts to escape a mountainous cat’s cradle of TV Mayweather, dressed in black McGregor’s clumsy clinches brought cables, media following like spell- tracksuit with gold spangles, talked to mind AJ Liebling’s description of bound supplicants. of being “kinda shocked” by how Marciano against Archie Moore as “a His bout with Floyd Mayweather good McGregor had been. And the supreme exponent of bel canto who won’t ever quite reach a boxing Dubliner, in floral blue suit (below), sees himself crowded out of the opera corner. Let me try to compose myself. museum and maybe, in time, it will paid tribute to his opponent’s ability house by a guy who can only shout”. McCOMB BOWS OUT BUT You’ve got to put me out. I think if I’d be remembered less as a sports to “change gameplan three times” McGregor’s MMA instinct to got to the end of round 10,I would event than some extravagant tourist which, of course, is “what a true grapple his opponent from behind, to IRISH TRIO STILL IN MIX have had that minute of recovery and attraction. Certainly, the idea that champion does”. chop down on the back of his head, to I would have come out strong. boxing might suddenly have to sit Both came to the press conference essentially fight dirty, kept drawing SEAN McCOMB bowed out of the “If that was a Mixed Martial Arts up at McGregor’s command was left then, bubbling with vindication. him into territory that required the World Elite Championships at the last bout, you’d want to see your nose coldly unwrapped as a silly conceit. Thanking the suits, counting their referee’s intervention. 16 stage on a unanimous decision to hanging off your face before you’re Once a 40-year-old Mayweather cash, moving on. Cuba’s No 2 seed Andy Cruz-Gomez in even considered getting stopped like settled into the beat of things, his And the pre-occupation with ACCURACY Hamburg, Germany, last night. that, you know what I mean? There ringcraft reduced the Irishman to a money was understandable. Yet his right-hand jab was working The judges handed the Americas was no knock-down, no nothing. And picnicker swinging at a wasp. McGregor was still speculating that too (28 per cent accuracy to champion a 30-26, 30-26, 30-26, 30-27, they stopped it. That never happens he could clear $100 million for the Mayweather’s 31 per cent) and that 30-27 verdict, with the three 10-8 in MMA. It is what it is...” PUNCHES show, telling us: “We’re now in the left-hand always seemed cocked rounds to the Cuban raising eyebrows He tried to make the distinction But the fight stats told us that he’d counting phase! I’ve sent auditors as if ready to deliver some kind of given the quality of McComb’s work. between “glancing” blows and landed 111 punches on a boxer of in there like f*****g sharks to count wrecking-ball moment. Trouble was, Meanwhile, Irish captain Joe Ward, “damaging” blows, maybe between such uniquely skilful defence that every single dot.” in time, Mayweather’s shifting feet Brendan Irvine and Dean Gardiner optics and reality. opponents ordinarily end up feeling Mayweather was hoping, it kept taking him to places McGregor – the last three Irish boxers left in “You know what? I don’t feel like I like drunks chasing bank notes in seemed, to do maybe twice that, couldn’t reach Hamburg – fight in the last 16 of the lost a fight,” McGregor said. “I feel like the wind. For a debutant in this reminding us that he’d got sponsors By the seventh round, he landed tournament today. I lost a football match or something. school, that had to be something. who’d stump up “millions” a succession of heavy, right-hand Ward meets Georgia’s Iago Kizira “I caught him with a few big Now, it must be said that not for just half an hour of his crosses that drew uncomfortable for a place in the last eight and Irvine shots early on, then I started to everybody bought the message attention. gasps. And, when the stoppage is in against Korea’s Inkyu Kim. waste energy. It was a very enjoyable implicit in those figures. Some at From start to finish, the eventually came three rounds later, it Gardiner earned a unanimous experience and a great learning ringside suspected Mayweather whole gig made you feel as was less an intervention of pity than decision over Hyeon Do Kim on his experience. Of course, I’d have loved had maybe been playing games, if you were sitting on some an act of common sense. world debut on Saturday, but the 10-8 to win. If not the win, I’d have loved if only to hold a parody together. bizarre movie set. McGregor, inevitably, did not think round against the Korean in the first to be put away. I don’t feel I was put That with so much money spent, From McGregor’s corner- so. He talked of being fatigued, but was unfair as he was floored because away.” they couldn’t be seen to men coming to the ring clear-headed. of an accidental clash of heads and As he spoke, McGregor’s wife allow the sands of dressed in waistcoats and “It was a little early,” he told us. “I not a punch. fed their baby son a midnight this fight run out ties, to Mayweather get a little wobbly when I’m tired. But Gardiner, who meets Columbia’s No bottle, surrounded by a posse of too soon. favouring a get me in the corner and I’ll recover 4 seed Cristian Salcedo for a place in Mayweather’s faction, the two tribes Who can say? black cloak and and I’ll come back. He (the referee) the quarter-finals said: “It was a clash now purposefully at peace. It hadn’t McGregor balaclava; to should have let me keep going until I of heads, accidental. been a full house on the night, nine of won the first the Corona girls hit the floor. “I thought the whole fight I was the highest storey sections left empty three rounds in bikinis, still “Let me go down. Let the man put comfortable enough all the way as many chose to watch from cheaper on most cards, smiling their me down. Wobbly or fatigued, that’s through it. I want to keep the ball vantage points in bars and casinos. including wooden smiles energy, that’s not damage. I’m clear- rolling now and I’m confident.” Had it all maybe been some kind of that of judge now – two full headed. Let me wobble back to my spectacular ruse? Irish Independent Monday 28 August 2017 Boxing/Gaelic Games Sport 53 Galway can banish ‘chokers’ tag with patience and precision

IKE many neutrals, I’m living more in hope than expectation that a novel All-Ireland final will BRENDAN explode into a classic. L But I’m still intrigued to see how Galway will deal with the ultimate test of patience and CUMMINS precision against Waterford. These are the two key traits that will be required to unlock the Déise door at Croke Park. Galway have played against sweepers for the majority of their season but Waterford do it better than anybody. During the week,I spent a few hours watching footage taken from behind the goals of how Waterford set up against Kilkenny and Wexford. We are all familiar with the role of Tadhg de Búrca in the system, but Darragh Fives is also central to its success. The role of Fives is to hold his own 65-metre line, ensuring that there’s no overlap through the middle that will expose De Búrca. Waterford’s belief is that this tactic, with seven backs all playing within 70 yards of their own goal, keeps them in the game come what may. More often than not, it’s effective. Galway’s Colm Callanan cannot afford to put the ball in the areas commanded Game management is hugely by Waterford’s Darragh Fives and Tadhg de Búrca next Sunday important when you play against Waterford. You have more time than you think inside your own What you’ll see is Fives holding Coupled with the defensive 45-metre line when, on occasion, that area 60 yards from his shutters going up at the other there might not be a Waterford own goal, and with De Búrca end of the field, Waterford have attacker in sight. providing another comfort their platform to play from. It’s The perfect attacking scenario blanket behind, Galway will a finely-tuned overall system – Floyd Mayweather for Galway is to arrow balls from really earn their scores. and it will take a good Galway catches Conor the left half-back position and The presence of De Búrca will performance to break it down. McGregor with a into the right corner. stem the Galway goal threat, and The absence of Conor Gleeson right hook during Fives on the 65-metre line will for Waterford is a blow. For me, Saturday night’s SUPPORT make it more difficult for the he’s been the best man-marker in bout in Las Vegas This can take De Búrca out of the Tribesmen to shoot accurately this year’s championship – and equation and the receiving Gal- from distance. the guy who would potentially way player then, Conor Cooney The Galway goalkeeper, Colm have picked up Joe Canning. or , has the option Callanan, will have to know what It’s one less option for Derek “A lot of people thought it was entertained by the whole thing, from to shoot or wait for a support the bodies of Fives and De Búrca McGrath, and can only hurt his fake,” acknowledged Mayweather. the mental side of it, from the verbal runner. look like from 80 yards. He simply team’s chances of winning. “But we didn’t like each other. side of it and, of course, from the final, But I’m sure that Galway can’t put the ball into their areas. As for Galway, they’ve been Probably still don’t like each other. physical side of it. Because there was manager Micheál Donoghue will In Waterford’s game against comfortable so far in winning “He’s a lot better than I thought many forms to the fight, the verbal have studied the 2016 Munster Wexford, Fives was perfectly matches by scoring points but he’d be. He’s a tough competitor. He battle on the world tour, the mental final, when the Waterford placed on so many occasions, they might need goals this time. was a hell of a fighter staying up, battle through the whole thing and, of sweeper system crumbled against holding in the right-half-back They’ll be like hen’s teeth kinda shocked me. Our gameplan was course, the final physical. a Tipp team playing with three position, on the left side of the against Waterford but I still to take our time, let him shoot his “It took me aback to come from the inside forwards. opposition’s attack. And when expect Galway to win the game, if shots early and then take him down game I come from and be disregarded And so, there is an argument Kilkenny tried to find Walter they can hold their nerve in that the stretch. Boxing’s reputation was and disrespected like that. You’ve got for Galway, at some stage during Walsh against Waterford, ‘squeaky bum’ period down the on the line here. to be iron tough in this business if you the game, to play with three Fives was there, winning clean home straight. “Tonight was my last fight. Tonight want to face that type of criticism. inside, with , possession over his opponent’s I chose the right dance partner to There was a lot of disrespect and when he comes on, joining Conor head. SCENARIO dance with. Conor you are a hell of a disregard for my skills, I was a little Cooney and Whelan. The system hinges on De Búrca The ideal scenario for Galway is champion.” bit taken aback. Waterford will then face the and Fives sitting tight but it to get two scores, or four points, Naturally, it was impossible to “In fairness, Floyd and his task of standing up to an aerial also relies on huge work-rate in ahead. What will Waterford do reconcile such civility with the team never actually showed that bombardment and the reason all areas of the pitch ahead of then? That’s the question Galway ugliness that went before it, but Vegas disrespect. But just the overall, why they struggled in that Tipp them, with the half-forwards need to ask – and they have the isn’t a town that ever gets too bogged everyone else, it was almost like a game was because De Búrca was responsible for watching personnel to do it. down in the business of advertising little bit of a jealousy thing. So I kind swamped with ball coming in. opposition half-forwards or They also have the perfect standards. Enough people bought the of just got over it.” But Waterford, since then, have midfielders drifting back. blend of physicality, confidence show and believed in it. The neon was By now, burly security men were made further tweaks. Opposition If Callanan decides to play and no little skill. still flashing. impatient to empty the arena. teams are playing with five through his own ’45 rather than And their game management “Any regrets?” somebody asked “We gotta get Conor outta here,” forwards against their seven Waterford’s, he’s running the risk and composure against Tipperary McGregor. screeched someone’s walkie-talkie. defenders but because Waterford of turnovers. in the semi-final should ensure “Absolutely none,” he replied, an But ‘The Notorious’ kept stopping to forwards are working so hard That’s what Waterford want that the big day won’t faze them. arm around his mother Margaret. talk, smiling and sipping his whiskey, back into the middle third, it’s as you to do. They want you play But if they flop again on final “This was some buzz, to come harvesting the platitudes of a media if they’ve moved the goalposts 30 high-risk hurling and when day, the old ‘chokers’ tag will rear in and face this man with so many still holding on to every word. yards up the pitch and condensed ‘Brick’ invariably wins those its head. doubters.I can’t be responsible for Would he do it again? the play. frees, Galway could get caught As a Galway player, that’s not a how people remember, how people “Yeah, I believe I’ll do it again,” he They’ll allow you have the ball up in their own thinking and legacy you want to leave behind see me or what they remember about shrugged. “But I’m looking forward to 30 yards from your own goal but Waterford will have them in their but I’ve said all summer that they me or anything like that. If it was me kicking something again first.” when you drive it forward, you’re trap. look like a team ready to win the looking back, it’s a young kid that And then he was off in his white driving it into attackers with ‘Brick’ and Moran, so good at All-Ireland. came from nothing, came to take it Roller, away to some gilded party odds heavily stacked against holding possession and waiting I haven’t seen enough to change all. And you know, I came up short maybe with J Lo or LeBron. them. And Waterford, when they for the cavalry to arrive, have also my mind on that – provided they tonight, but it is what it is. The hard kid from Crumlin, win possession, are excellent on contributed 3-14 between them in play their way through this final “I just hope that the people were dressed for his next movie. the counter-attack. this year’s championship. test. Irish Independent 4 SportAthletics C Saturday 23 December 2017

HE disappoints us, Sonia. She frustrates us in her resistance to the cliché of the cheated, the obligation to be Sangry. We want her to spew vitriol upon the resilient ‘We’dlook lies of history, the ghost records, the secretive champions, the unexplained glories of a time when nobody ran with more thrilling grace than she did on the great flashbulb nights of Track and Field. But Sonia just guides us around the overatSzabo barbed-wire reflex. Instead of deliver- ing a sermon, she gently introduces us to a girl. Remember Liu Dong? Chances are you don’t, given our memories of Stuttgart’93 have remained largely unspecific. andher Over time, the Chinese of those World Championships acquired an almost inanimate quality in our minds, one indistinguishable from another. An army of robots almost. Cold. Me- chanical. Doll-like. Well, Liu Dong was the girl who won doctor’sbig, 1,500 metres gold, ahead of Sonia’s sil- ver. She lives in Spain now and they’ve met a few times in recent years, first at the ‘97 World Indoor Championships but, more recently, at the 2015 World Cross-Country Championships in Guiyang. blackbag, And Dong always asks Sonia for a photograph when they meet. She comes across as warm, respectful, likeable. Once, she even wrote her address on the back of an envelope and Sonia remembers promising herself that wondering she’d send a Christmas card. But she never did. RUMOUR So Dong is still a fading mystery to- day. A rumour in human form. After winning that gold in Stuttgart, she why did completed a lap of honour to almost stony silence. Then O’Sullivan and bronze medalist, Hassiba Boulmerka, returned to the track, circling to a wild ovation. Sonia remembers wondering at the time if this might be the ultimate sheneed conceit, a lap of honour for finishing second? It was unheard of back then, but – somehow – the crowd demanded it. They were delivering a statement then that they imagined might make a difference. It never did. A quarter of a century on, Sonia a doctor?’ meets people on an almost daily ba- sis lamenting the so-called ‘Chinese Takeaway’ of those Championships. After all, she finished fourth in the 3,000 metres final behind three of Ma Junren’s army too. The medallists ran In the most candid interview she has like soldiers. Recently, at home in Cobh, she dust- ever given, Ireland’s greatest athlete, ed down an old photo album the Irish team manager Fr Liam Kelleher had Sonia O’Sullivan, talks about drugs given her from those Championships. She’d never really paid much heed to in her sport and feeling ‘used’ by the it before, but some of his close-up pic- tures of the Chinese now startled her. OCI at the London Olympics in 2012 Their faces especially. Blank. Com- pliant. Empty-eyed. And it set her thinking how she wished she’d sent that Christmas card, maybe opening a line of communica- tion to Liu Dong that might have led at some point in the distance to having the conversation she now knows will never happen. “How could you possibly run that time before they get to ‘93!’ stayed on an island – Couran Cove er,” bellowed Wami, only to discover Asking the unending question: well if you weren’t cheating?” So anger? If you light that match, – with husband, Nick, and daughter, that Worku had medal ambitions of “What were you doing back then?” In 1994, Sonia finished second in the what exactly is it that you end up Ciara. To get to the track, they’d take a her own. So, crucially, the field came 1,500m at the Goodwill Games behind VINCENT gaining from the fire? boat and, often, Gabriella Szabo would back to O’Sullivan. And that’s when ***** Russian, Yekaterina Podkopayeva. Sonia still runs most days of the be in the boat with them. she knew she had a real shot at gold. Officially, the winner’s age was docu- week, sometimes hard and solitary, “She had her coach with her and After finishing fourth in Barcelona ANT TO KNOW THE mented as 42. She reckons Podkopaye- HOGAN other times just a gentle jog with fellow she had a doctor,” Sonia remembers. and suffering a wipe-out in Atlanta, thing that grates? va was nearer 45. “You’d be looking at mothers on the school run. “And the doctor would always have this Sonia had a decision to make 200 More than the cheats? her, thinking, ‘How can she be doing She coaches bits and pieces. Her big, black bag. We’d be looking over, metres from home. “If I watch Sydney More than the state- this, running four minutes for the 1,500 younger daughter, Sophie, has a talent wondering why did she need a doctor? now, I should have won that race,” she Wsponsored thieving? metres?’” she remembers now. And it was around the time Diack’s Junxia was one of nine signatories to (high-jump and middle-distance) that You know it was way beyond anything says flatly. “If I had been a little more More than the endless pharmaceutical “She was almost seen as this old arrest took place that Sonia O’Sullivan a letter admitting the ingestion of “a looks like it might flower into some- that I could comprehend. Like, I didn’t patient, if I had a little more belief arms race? lady back then, but she’d come up to began to decommission her own inter- large dose of illegal drugs” during their thing around which a career might even have a physio. in myself . . . not panicked and not It’s the lazy consensus. The way you after and be really friendly. She’d est in an administrative role within time under Junren’s tutelage. even form. “So you’re looking at this big, black gone for it. history becomes disfigured, rewritten always want to greet you when she’d international athletics. The IAAF confirmed at the time that But Sophie runs, not because her bag, wondering what on earth was “Not tried to match Szabo on the through the narrow lens of those with see you in the hotel and I’d be thinking, She’d been nominated by Athletics they had launched a probe into those Mum was – arguably – the greatest inside it. outside. Why didn’t I just sit in behind dirt beneath their fingernails. When ‘I don’t want to be anywhere near you’.” Ireland in 2015 for a seat on the IAAF claims. In October, a former doctor of female athlete on the planet in her “I remember we did a training her? I might just have had that little bit Sonia runs now, she listens to podcasts, So the shadow has always been Council, but the story of Diack broke the Chinese Olympic team admitted to day. Sonia has never coached her, session one night at this Runaway of extra stuff at the end . . . ” a recent favourite being that of the there. Maybe the innocence has been just as she was travelling to the World a systemic doping programme in the never wants to. No, Sophie runs for Bay and drove down the Gold Coast After crossing the line, she took reformed alcoholic turned American in trusting officialdom’s appetite to Championships in Beijing. country across all sports during the the simple joy of it. That feeling of immediately after to where the British a few seconds hunkered down to endurance athlete, Rich Roll. remove it. “I remember reading it and think- ‘80s and ‘90s, suggesting that every camaraderie and, on occasion, bliss- team was based. Gerard Hartmann assemble her thoughts before rising A couple of weeks back, Roll inter- In believing the blazers. In under- ing, ‘Do I really want to be a part of Chinese medal won in that period ful weightlessness. The simplicity of was working with them as a physio with a smile. “If you lose a race, your viewed Bryan Fogel, director of ‘Icarus’, estimating how politics, when un- something that is as corrupt as that?’” was tainted. finding a day when, as Sonia puts and he’d agreed to see me in secret, first instinct is to be disappointed, the documentary that morphed into checked, reduces everything to yokel. she recalls now. The week that story broke, Sonia it beautifully, “it’s like you’re nearly just to give me one session. So that’s you’re annoyed,” she reveals. “But then an exploration of Russian state-spon- She thinks, for example, about the “You’re supposed to be protecting was attending an IAAF road-running dancing”. how basic it was for me.” you have to remind yourself that this sored doping. IAAF’s 100th anniversary celebrations the athletes, but this is going on, conference in Germany. Asking an The rest of it? The putrid stuff?The is the Olympics. All your life you’ve During the interview, Fogel recalls in 2012 and Wang Junxia’s induction decisions are being made and you official for some update on the story shameless subterfuge? The Kenyans PACKAGE been trying to get to this moment of his first meeting with the central into their Hall of Fame. probably don’t even know about them. now trending wildly on social media, running as Turks? The chronic asth- Three years after those Games, Szabo’s winning an Olympic medal. character of the story, Dr Grigory Beijing had hosted the Olympics So I went there and I wasn’t really he seemed blissfully unaware of it. matics? The curious heart conditions? Ford Mondeo would be stopped by “If you ran the race again, maybe Rodchenkov, director of Moscow’s with the World Championships and that committed to pushing my name “It hadn’t even registered,” she re- The odd sicknesses that assail the French border police outside Monaco the medals would be distributed dif- anti-doping centre. World Cross-Country Championships forward anymore. I just wasn’t sure flects incredulously. “So he said, ‘Oh, fastest, strongest, biggest athletes in and a package containing Actovegin, a ferently. You could have been first, you Fogel asks Rodchenkov if he believes soon to follow. The IAAF had recently about it at all.” there’s an Integrity Unit dealing with the world? The language of chicanery? derivative of calf serum that increases could have been fourth. But it’s over. I it is possible to win an Olympic medal announced a new sponsorship deal How on earth could she be? all that!’ Apparently, they’re working Sonia tells a story. the blood’s oxygen-carrying capacity ran as best I could.” without taking performance-enhanc- with the China Petroleum and Chem- Last year, a story broke that Wang from now backwards. It’ll be a long During the Sydney Olympics, she in the same way as EPO, found in ing drugs. ical Corporation. the boot. ***** The Russian’s response is: “I should Sonia O’Sullivan with Szabo was not present, the car being believe, I try to believe, but I do not APPLAUDED David Matthews, driven by a friend of her husband. And F THERE’S A PEBBLE IN her believe . . . ” Then he pauses briefly, And now the entire room stood and Niamh Matthews when one of her team-mates at that shoe left over from Sydney before adding: “I don’t know. Maybe applauded Junxia as she came to and Gerard year’s World Championships in Paris today, maybe it’s to do with the I’m a bad man!” get her award. Wang Junxia, who Hartmann at the subsequently took responsibility for medal presentation. Listening, Sonia experienced a quiet broke the women’s 10,000m record Irish Independent the drugs, Szabo was cleared, retiring I It was Pat Hickey who put fury rise up inside of her. The way by 42 seconds when running at her Sportstar of the almost immediately. the silver around her neck that night Fogel’s conversation with Roll was be- National Championships in 1993. Year awards in So does Sonia imagine she was and, eight years later, it would be large- ginning to unspool seemed to be slip- Who ran the second half of that association with The robbed of gold in Sydney? Not exactly. ly through his encouragement that ping into the trap again of somehow race 11 seconds faster than the existing Croke Park Hotel, In her own mind, she blew it. Yes, there she’d take up a place on the Olympic normalising drug use. Of writing the world record for the 5,000m. Who ran where she was were a lot of things about Szabo that Council of Ireland board. What did honest athlete out of history. “It really the final 3,000m five seconds faster inducted into the made her “wonder”. she know of him then? Little enough got to me,” she acknowledges now. than the world record for that distance. Irish Independent But that 5,000m final and the seven beyond the garrulous nature of his “I remember thinking, ‘You can’t Whose previous best 10,000m time Hall of Fame stone wraith holding her off on the personality, the uncommon weight of say that!’ Because I know it isn’t true.” before ’93 had been roughly three SAM BARNES/SPORTSFILE home straight? No, this wasn’t about his self-regard. But this is the recurring betrayal minutes slower. feeling cheated. But, when the Rio ticket scandal of those who run clean. The cheats’ Wang Junxia who, at those same Right: Sonia with In one sense, she was blessed that was erupting 16 months ago, she assumption that they don’t. championships in Beijing, would Gabriela Szabo after the two Ethiopians, Gete Wami and found herself on Olympic duty in a When Sonia was in her pomp, she carve more than 16 seconds off a world finishing second to Ayelech Worku, began arguing at the Montrose TV studio, her phone ringing was acquainted with the boyfriend of a 3,000m record that had stood for the the Romanian in the front. Their coach, Jos Hermens, would daily from people in the RTÉ News Russian athlete whose training diaries previous decade. women’s 5000m final be livid afterwards, given their prior Department. As a member of the OCI openly documented her ingestion of That IAAF evening in Monte Carlo at the 2000 Olympic tactical agreement to push the pace board, she was coming under pressure drugs. was hosted by its president, Lamine Games in Sydney hard enough to lose O’Sullivan. to provide answers she simply did not “I’d met her a couple of times,” Diack, a man currently under house DARREN ENGLAND/ “That was the whole thing, to get have access to. Sonia remembers now. “And she told arrest in Paris over allegations that he ALLSPORT rid of me,” remembers Sonia. “It was kind of assumed you knew her boyfriend that they assumed, of accepted bribes for covering up doping Briefly, they succeeded only for their everything that was going on, but you course, that I was cheating too. violations for Russian athletes. argument to then start. “Faster, Fast- didn’t,” she explains now. “You couldn’t Irish Independent Saturday 23 December 2017 C Athletics Sport 5

was just a photo-opportunity for them. And that’s when you kind of realise Sonia O’Sullivan in it’s all a game. Because nothing was The Croke Park before properly organised, everything was being inducted into kind of last-minute.” the Irish Independent O’Sullivan’s suspicion today is that, Hall of Fame at the highest level of the Council, her SEB DALY/SPORTSFILE name was always going to be more important than her input. She came under pressure in London to commit all of the medallists to a formal OCI homecoming when none had been pre-arranged. With most athletes hav- ing already made their own, individual arrangements, the OCI event had to eventually be postponed. Did she feel used? “At the end of 2012? Yeah. We never discussed it. Like I had a role to play, but it wasn’t an administrative role. It was more a connecting role with the athletes. And I felt good about that role because I wasn’t that far away from be- ing an athlete myself, so I understood everything they needed. I got really positive feedback from the athletes. “But that’s one of the reasons, I de- cided against doing it in Rio. I just felt I hadn’t been involved up to that point and, all of a sudden, you get thrown in. DISTRACTION “The athletes don’t need that. It’s just a distraction really. Then they just feel obliged to talk to you and it’s one extra thing they don’t need to be dealing with. “Like in London, I hardly spoke to Tom O’Riordan in action during the 1966 Amateur Athletic Union and NACA Championship in Gormanston CONNOLLY COLLECTION / SPORTSFILE Katie before the Olympics. She had this whole routine she followed before her fights and I often saw her with her mother, early in the morning, coming into the Village as I was going for a run. You know you’d wave, but you Legendary O’Riordan a huge knew she was in the zone, doing her own thing. So I was, ‘I don’t need to be bothering her here . . . ’ “I would be the same. I’m not going over there to try to speak to her, just because I’m Chef de Mission. It’s this inspiration to generations small-talk stuff... you don’t need that extra thing in your day.” As a compromise, O’Sullivan offered to go to Rio for the first week only, then return to Dublin to fulfil broadcast commitments with RTÉ. The offer, on the track and in journalism much to her relief in hindsight, was rejected. The truth is she never did get to know Pat Hickey on anything but the FormerOlympian, this week. “I left Metropolitan most superficial of levels. Yet, during Harriers way back in 1974 to join recent filming in RTÉ for ‘Ireland’s whocelebratedhis Donore Harriers. Why? To train Greatest Sporting Moment’, footage with Tom O’Riordan and that’s came on screen of Sonia’s medal pres- 80thbirthdaythis why I felt that if I could beat Tom, entation in Sydney. And the identity of not just in training but in a race, I the man handing over that silver left year,mademostof was going to make it.” her feeling conflicted. hisuniqueposition What stood out about “There’s a little voice in your head,” interviewing Tom was how she acknowledges now. “And it’s ask- toenhancea he constantly mentioned ing, ‘Are you really happy about that?’” friendships and those who were remarkablecareer kind to him. Money was tight so ***** he travelled home to Kerry only HE final question I once during his four-year stint O HOW DO YOU STAY asked Tom O’Riordan in Idaho but his coach looked out in love with a sport that was the first time he for him and every Christmas had keeps unravelling before shrugged off giving him over for Christmas dinner. your eyes? an answer during an “He was a father figure to me, Tinterview at his home in S Maybe by remembering and his wife as well, and I was that sunrise of a smile Thomas Barr Dublin this week. made to feel so welcome,” Tom brought to Rio? Maybe by looking at “What advice would you give recalls. the young Irish juniors now running me for writing this piece about Tom also struck up great so hard and so fearlessly in wait of you?”I asked Tom. friendships with sports people that magical day when they, too, might He laughed. Sinead Kissane with Tom O’Riordan in his Clonskeagh home like John Treacy, who used to just run outside of their imaginations. But later, as I walked out the stay with him in Dublin, and Maybe by looking into your own front door, Tom called from the the late Páidí Ó Sé. “I was great explain to people that you had no idea. come to those meetings, why are you daughter’s eyes and remembering that sitting room: “Put away those friends with Páidí. I gave him a Because people would say, ‘Well, why on the board?” not everything is poison. notes and write from the head.” lot of advice and he appreciated didn’t you? You should have known!’ As to the London Olympics, she Sonia admits that a small part of Writing and running was what SINEAD it. Advice about training, squad And, to be fair, I would be the same recalls a few “rocky moments” to- her felt dead watching the Rio Games Tom O’Riordan did. He turned 80 training, training on short hills. looking at the IAAF when all of that wards the end of those Games that, last year, sensing the broad absence of in July this year with nearly half Páidí used to love the short hills,” blew up. Surely if you’re on the IAAF in hindsight, maybe should have been innocence, the joylessness in so many. of those years spent as a sports Tom says. “He was an amazing board, attending all these meetings . . . , educational. It’s clearly harder now, she under- journalist with Independent KISSANE man. The last man in the world “So I’d be out in RTÉ getting all Sonia explains: “I remember when stands that. So many athletes feel Newspapers (and more years as you would expect to die.” these phone calls from their news Katie Taylor won her medal, I had to they’re just running into stone walls. a freelancer). It was a career he Inside Tom’s office in his department wanting me to go on the bring her to this Irish House and it was They see stuff like the Oregon Project formally started the same year he a report on the race but at least I didn’t make the Olympic final home, amidst all the medals, News. It was really weird. Nobody (in the last place on earth that she wanted looking to create the perfect athlete qualified for the 1964 Olympics he didn’t have to track down the because I was capable of it and I memorabilia, photos and the sports department) said that they to go. You know she’s just not into while pushing the concept of legality in Tokyo. coach of the team for quotes. was fit enough but I just didn’t athletics book, is a poster of the were or weren’t going to ask me about pubs or anything like that, but I was as far as it will stretch. Tom’s time as an amateur Tom’s athletics career took do it. And that lived with me for All-Ireland-winning Kerry team it. So I was always a bit on edge. There getting constant phone calls, ‘Where They see the epidemic of TUEs. athlete rolled into his job as a off when he was offered a four- a good while after. It was a great of Fitzgerald and Moynihan. Tom was a lot of criticism of them for not is she? Where is she?’ They see Africans winning European reporter. Journalists are told to year scholarship by Idaho State disappointment to me. Huge,” loves Kerry football and rarely, asking me about it, but they had de- “I remember being in the back of titles. They see the very institutions know their subject; well, Tom College in 1957 at a time when Tom admits. if ever, tipped any other team to cided not to because they didn’t want the car going down there, saying to meant to police all this bad stuff was his own subject on a few only a handful of Irish athletes “It’s in your mind and it never win the Sam Maguire. to put me in that position. her, ‘I know that this is the last thing caught up in incriminating business occasions. went to America on scholarship. leaves your mind. Well, it does “Because I wasn’t there to discuss you want to do . . . ’ I would have been of their own. After one of the seven senior A report from the college leave your mind but it’s a bit of a ACCESS being on the Olympic Council board. exactly the same, going into a crowd National Cross-Country titles described Tom as having the regret that’s in you. At the time it “I had great access, that’s right. So they just kind of skirted around it.” full of people who are totally drunk. TRUEST he won, Tom remembers still “makings of a ‘second Ron was a bit hard to take.” You could walk into a dress- What wouldn’t have been known They mean well, but it wasn’t done And there’s a trap in all of that. The wearing his spikes and running Delany”. His coach, Dubby Holt, Tom would go on to cover every ing-room and just talk to anyone. then was just how easily Sonia might properly for someone who had just trap is that you stop remembering who gear as he rang in the report of also said Tom’s arrival should Summer Olympic Games up to I was over in Killarney one time have been out in Rio herself and, achieved what she had achieved. you’re truest opponent will always be. the race he just came first in from “inspire the rest of the track team and including Sydney 2000 as and Mick (O’Dwyer) said: ‘Go potentially, open to arbitrary arrest. “And Katie was telling me that all In her pomp, she never saw Olympic a public pay-phone on the course. since runners from that part of a journalist. But sitting in the away in there and talk to the lads’ As all manner of OCI personnel she wanted to do was go to McDon- qualification as a challenge so it was Writing from the head must the world are very hard workers”. front room of his home listening (in the middle of the training suddenly found themselves in custody, ald’s, have some time for herself and impossible for her to empathise with have been easy when your heart Tom worked hard. He reckons to him recall his own Olympic field). It was unbelievable,” Tom O’Sullivan was thankful that she’d her family to just reflect on the whole those who did. Then the ageing process was fully in it. he broke around 20 records in experience reminded me that laughs. turned down Hickey’s invitation to thing. But, at that moment, it’s like brought her back to the field. Tom also ‘double-jobbed’ a few Idaho State College and by the there’s a duality in everything The flip-side was Dublin. reprise the Chef de Mission’s role she’d you’re owned by the Olympic Council “Like I had this run of winning 20 times when he ran in the World time his scholarship near the – regret in what many others “The Dubs, that was a kind of a undertaken at the London Games. I suppose. races in a row and I never thought Cross-Country Championships. “I Rocky Mountains finished, he would view as an achievement difficult situation. I would often That invitation, essentially, came too “We went there and they had this about it,” she remembers now. “Some- had to find out who the winners ran in competitions in every state in becoming the first athlete go to Parnell Park when they late for Sonia to prepare properly small stage roped off. There was a bit times, it was almost as if I stepped were and the times and the team in America. from Kerry to be selected for an were training. Oh,I wasn’t very and, given she’d had little or no prior of security there, but not much. It was outside myself during those races. race and all that. It was a bit of His achievements included the Olympics track event. popular around Dublin now!” involvement with the athletes going to around midnight, this heaving crowd, “Like there were so many races an effort but I managed it. I was NAIA Cross-Country title in 1960 Listening to Tom also made Life has slowed down for Tom Brazil, “I kind of felt it was just going the place absolutely packed. All these I’d look back thinking, ‘How did I do never sued for writing the wrong and, a year later, he finished fifth me realise how little of the full after he was diagnosed with to be another publici- ty people pushing in on top of every- that?’ I never thought there’d be a day stuff!” he smiles. in the NCAA Cross-Country. picture I knew. Parkinson’s disease. “There’s stunt.” body. Katie came in and everybody I wouldn’t be able to get a qualifying After returning home, 1963 It’s hard to write this piece a fear of falling – you lose your Another? was cheering. Most people couldn’t time for an Olympics. I’d be think- OPINIONS was a vintage year as Tom broke solely from the head because balance. My mind seems to be O’Sullivan admits actually see her, they just knew she ing, ‘Well I’ll never not be able to do “The race was the most impor- Irish records and finished the Tom is my uncle. He rarely spoke reasonably OK. It’s been a bit now that she believes was there and seemed happy enough that . . . ’ And then you can’t. You find tant. I didn’t even think about season with times in the top five about his achievements but we of a struggle with it now,” Tom her appointment to with that. yourself running so slow and you’re the report until it was all over. in the world for the two-mile and knew enough since we were very admits. the OCI board in 2008 “So when Katie left, I thinking how did I ever run so fast? It I never found it very difficult. I three-mile events. young to always be proud to call “I don’t find it a cross to was “just a publici- became the next best thing. doesn’t make sense.” could relate and once you got a It’s over half a century since him our uncle. bear or anything like that. I ty thing”. She did, It took ages to get out of Not long before Páidí Ó Sé died, few basic facts you were away.” the 1964 Olympics but time hasn’t Every time he went to the suppose as the doctor said to me: it’s true, have an there but, when we did, Sonia was on a bike ride in Dingle with Tom wasn’t afraid to back dimmed the sense of regret Tom Olympics he brought home ‘Parkinson’s – it won’t kill you but input into the I remember walking Gerard Hartmann when they decided up his opinions as an athletics has over not qualifying for the presents for his nieces and you will die with it.’ London Games down the road, Pat to call into his Ventry pub. During journalist. After being critical 5,000m final. nephews (I still have the “I have to be truthful with you and, most of it, Hickey and Willie their conversation, Ó Sé pulled this of the Ireland Cross-Country The Olympic gold was won by T-shirt from Seoul ‘88 at home and say that I’ve had a good life. I rewarding. But O’Brien walking in biscuit tin from behind the bar, in it team, he was asked to take over American Bob Schul who Tom somewhere). wouldn’t change it for anything. I post-2012, she front of me. And I his eight All-Ireland medals. as team coach for the 1979 World spent the previous summer Tom’s the reason I wanted won no Olympic medal but I don’t reckons she just felt, ‘They don’t That moment set her thinking. Championships in Limerick. training with in California. to get into journalism and why have any real regrets or anything attended – at even care!’ None of this, you see, is really about Tom took it on and organised Another friend of his, American there was always a great interest like that,” Tom adds as his phone best – three “The thing was medals in the end. training sessions at the Phoenix Billy Mills, won the 10,000m in athletics in our family. pings with a message from one of board meet- to get Katie there, It is, ultimately, about people being Park for a very talented group of final. He motivated plenty of others. his sons. ings. “You’d kind they didn’t care the best that they can be. It is about athletes. Ireland went on to win What was it like seeing one “As a young boy growing up, I I leave soon after, grateful that of think surely my what I did. And courage, moral and physical. About team silver with John Treacy of his training partners win the knew that if I could beat Tom the line of work he inspired me to position on the that was one honour. The rest? It becomes just retaining the title. final? O’Riordan, that would be a big do was an excuse to spend time board would have moment when I noise. Theatre and noise. “It was a great achievement. I “God, it was great. But it would deal and I would make it onto the before Christmas with a person been questioned by began to ask my- And for as long as we are alive, found great satisfaction in that,” make you feel like, God, what world stage,” Eamonn Coghlan we all look up to in our family. somebody,” she sug- self, ‘Why are you there will always be a mirror in the Tom admits. were you doing wrong. ‘Twas a told me at the Irish Independent Happy Christmas to you and gests. “If you can’t doing all this?’ It next room. Of course, he still had to file bit of a disappointment now that Sportstar of the Year awards your family. Katieblasts‘absolutelyclueless’punditsovercriticism LEONA HOPES SISTER LISA’S MOVE TO PRO RANKS WILL PAVE WAY FOR IRISH GOLF: World amateur No 1 Leona (right), who is still undecided about Bernard O’Neill The Bray fighter soaked up a her, she wanted to get involved.I would’ve thought that people Maguire is thrilled her twin sister Lisa whether or not she will make June’s number of shots in middle rounds thought it showed, actually, a lack making those comments would is considering joining her in the paid Curtis Cup her amateur swansong. KATIE TAYLOR has described after abandoning her slick hit and of a boxing brain.” have some knowledge. ranks in 2018. “It would be great to see Lisa turn British pundits Mike Costello move tactics and opted for a dust- Bunce remarked he was “a “The reason I won the fight The Duke University star (23) pro alongside me. She’s had her fair and Steve Bunce as “absolutely up with the Chicago brawler. little bit surprised at how often well is cos I used my boxing brain plans to turn professional after she share of struggles but she’s been clueless” after they questioned her Costello wasn’t impressed and she was hit by basically a six-bout and outsmarted my opponent. graduates in May and she’s hoping playing better of late so it be great to boxing intelligence against Jessica question her boxing intelligence novice”, adding: “She didn’t If people who particularly are to have Lisa for company in LPGA have her out there. McCaskill earlier this month. on radio, saying: “It demonstrated fight a seasoned woman who’s involved in boxing can’t see that, or Symetra Tour events as often as “We need more Irish out on tour Taylor defended her WBA world and showed us is how leaky Katie coming from loads of World they are absolutely clueless.” possible. with Stephanie (Meadow) and lightweight title on a unanimous Taylor’s defence is. Championships and Olympic Taylor is expected to fight in “I’ve always wanted to play on hopefully we can pave the way for decision in York Hall, London “She could not miss, it was so qualifiers and trials.” Ireland for the first time as a pro the LPGA Tour and play against the many more to come in the next few where she was docked a point for easy it was embarrassingly one- Responding, Taylor didn’t in April, with Argentina’s Victoria best players in the world,” said Leona years.” holding. sided. But that wasn’t enough for pull any punches, tweeting: “I Bustos a possible opponent.