Beijing Diary Number 10

Managing a sports team when all is going well is the place to be but the other side was the last 2 days. Sunday night in the stadium was disappointing and then today. Early morning David Gillick and Eileen OKeefe fail to qualify then along came Paul Hession and did the business in round 1 of the 200m to keep the day alive. So we return to the track tonight with the Athenry medical student.

This morning was also memorable as when the Chinese favourite in the 110m hurdles, Liu Xiang, failed to race due to injury. You could see the disbelief in the people, just in shock, all 80,000 of them. They had previously minutes earlier got worked into a frenzy to welcome him on to the track. He was along with the Cuban, the pre race favourite, and is the biggest sports star amongst 1.3 billion people. I will never forget the reaction and the silence.

Talking about big stars on the world stage. In the village is Ronaldinho the Brazilian soccer star, here to boost the Brazilian team who play neighbours Argentina later. He is not elegible as you need to be under 23 for olympic soccer and on the Argentinian team is Messi. Noticed Nadal the spanish tennis player and gold medal winner at a security check earlier. Federer was about a few days ago but is gone now after his early exit. The olympics creates a special multi sport mix, the rich from some sports and the rest, but all chasing the same thing, a medal or a performance.

Spent a while with Richard Simms in the stands this morning. His man came through 200m preliminaries okay and he was outlining how down to earth and normal Bolt is. That's not always the case with elite athletes regardless of sports.

Back to the computer. Relieved a class run from Paul Hession. Into the semi now after round 2 victory. Here is a well grounded young man, knows the task and has it pretty well sussed. Let's see what tomorrow night brings. For Paul to make final would be unbelievable, no white men make sprint finals. Simply, if you look at it, all the sprint finalists are from a genetic pool that were taken as slaves from West Africa many moons ago and now are Caribbean, African or US. That's the way it is, have a look at final start lists for 100m/200m. One interesting aspect of competition and the evaluation of same is that some athletes will internalise, be self critical, and be determined that they will use the experience to further improve. These are normally the more successful athletes. The other type of athlete is the one that pretty much looks round to see who or what they can blame the performance on should it be bad. Such is life and the challenge that comes with being a manager.

Patsy Mc Gonagle
Senior/Olympic team manager
Athletics Ireland
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