Irish Times article on Irelands Olympic hopefuls...

There was a piece in the Irish Times on Sat 30th July about some of the Irish Olympic medal hopes as they prepare for the 2012 games in London. They include the top Irish racewalker Rob Heffernan from Cork.

It starts with this little gem...

SEB COE TELLS a story about Christmas day, 1979. He’d already gone for a 12-mile morning run but once his dinner was over, he got fidgety. The Moscow Olympics would begin in seven months’ time and the fear that his great rival Steve Ovett was probably out doing a second run gnawed away at him. So he went out and put in another five miles in the afternoon.

It’s a semi-famous story among running folk. What’s maybe not as well known is the follow-up that was winkled out of Coe by the Irish sportswriter David Walsh in an interview in 2008. Twenty years after that Christmas day, Coe and Ovett had put away childish things and were friends now. Over a beer, Coe told Ovett of that day and of the paranoia he felt that made him go for a second run. “Can you believe that?” he asked. Ovett looked back at him and said, “Did you only run twice that day?”

The full article can be seen HERE