Off The Ball interview with 3 times Gold medalist Marcus O'Sullivan

There was an interesting interview recently from the Off The Ball team when they spoke with Marcus O'Sullivan. A Cork native and now head coach of Villanova University, Marcus has the distinction of having taken part in four summer Olympic Games, won three gold medals at the World Indoor Championships over 1500m and run a total of 101 sub-4 minute miles!

1992 Irish Senior Track & Field Championships

Another old video and this time from the Irish Track & Field Championships in Belfield, Dublin in 1992. Amongst those taking part are a very young 22 year old Sonia O'Sullivan, Catherina McKiernan and Marcus O'Sullivan.

In the mens 3,000m steeplechase, Liam O'Brien took the title and is still very much involved in athletics in Cork today.

Are US scholarships good for Irish athletes?

Over the weekend, the Irish radio station Newstalk had an in depth discussion on it's Off the Ball sports programme about the merits or otherwise of Irish athletes taking scholarships and going to universities in the US.

Included in the 50 minute programme are Sonia O'Sullivan, Eamonn Coghlan, Marcus O'Sullivan,  David McCarthy and Irish Times columnist Ian O'Riordan.

Five Greatest Irish Runners in Villanova history...

For decades, many Irish athletes have gone to Villanova college in the US to get a university education. In fact, Irish athletes were so synonymous with Villanova that it was called the 'Irish Pipeline'.

In conjunction with St.Patrick's Day last weekend, Villanova University had an article on their blog titled 'The Five Greatest Irish Runners in Villanova History'. With several decades worth of athletes to choose from, they finally decided on the top 5.

The five picked were Sonia O'Sullivan, Eamonn Coghlan, Marcus O'Sullivan, Ronnie Delaney and John Hartnett.

The article can be seen HERE

Eamonn Coghlan...Still 'Chairman of the Boards'...

Back in the late 70's and early 80's in the USA, races like the indoor mile were huge events and attracted big crowds. One of the most famous races at the time was the Millrose Games Wanamaker Mile in New York. Over this distance, Eamonn Coghlan excelled and won the event in what was then a record seven times. For this achievement, he earned the nickname 'The Chairman of the Boards'.

In 2010, Bernard Lagat set a new record by winning the Wanamaker Mile eight times. He also set the fastest time in 2005 when he ran 3:52.87. It's also worth noting that Marcus O'Sullivan from Cork also won the Wanamaker Mile an impressive six times.

After the most recent event, I had a look back at the previous winning times. It's easy to just look at the number of victories and just say someone won it X times. But was the competition to win in more modern times as intense as when it was back in the 1980's?

Surely consistency must count for something? Who had the fastest average winning time? As you can see from the results below, Eamonn Coghlan won his Wamamaker Mile races on average over a second faster than Lagat and two seconds faster than O'Sullivan.

 The Master is still ' The Chairman of the Boards'.