FANS, FRIENDS and family turned out to give European silver-medallist Derval O’Rourke a hearty welcome when she arrived at Dublin airport yesterday.
The Cork athlete had produced a breathtaking performance at this year’s European Championships to secure the silver medal in the women’s 100m hurdles final on Saturday. Her time of 12.65 seconds also set a new Irish record and secured Ireland’s 11th medal in the history of the games.
The first inkling that O’Rourke had arrived was an announcement over the airport’s public address system congratulating her on her win. Then airport police at the glass-doored entrance to arrivals stood back to allow the athlete through.
A cheer went up from sports fans, friends and family and the cameras snapped as she smiled and held up her medal.
Minister for Sport Mary Hanafin shook her hand and she was presented with flowers by sisters Sarah and Gráinne Hanley, aged nine and “nearly five”, from Skyrne, Co Meath. The girls were neighbours of O’Rourke’s trainers Seán and Terri Cahill and made the presentation on behalf of Athletics Ireland, the governing body for athletics in the country.
O’Rourke said she was very tired, but excited to be home.
“I am dying to get into my leaba,” she said. She was hoping to get some sleep then have a meal and a couple of glasses of wine with friends.
“I love getting national records because you want the national record to be as quick as possible and now it’s getting so the Irish national record is quicker than a lot of the other European ones. It is quite exciting and hopefully it will stand for a couple of years after I retire,” she said.
She recalled arriving at Dublin airport with a bronze medal and walking straight to long-term parking without seeing anyone.
“Obviously the top two medals are the things that count,” she said.Seeming to distance herself from criticisms she made this weekend of Athletics Ireland’s new programme for high performance athletes and its focus on the 2016 Olympics instead of 2012, O’Rourke said she preferred to talk about her medal win. She also said the €40,000 funding she was receiving from the Irish Sports Council was “amazing”.
“I think there are medal bonuses too so hopefully I can buy myself something nice.”
She said she would take three weeks out to recover and train and was looking forward to the world cup of athletics, the Continental Cup. The event takes place in the first week of September in Croatia and O’Rourke was chosen to run on the European team following her silver medal win.
Ms Hanafin said O’Rourke’s performance had raised the spirits of the nation after a fair bit of disappointment at the championships.
President of Athletics Ireland, Liam Hennessy, who was also at the airport yesterday, said O’Rourke’s performance was an extraordinary achievement.
Defending the organisation’s programme for high performance athletes, he said funding for it was ring-fenced and the organisation had “clearly enunciated” that along with a focus on youths and juniors, “each individual athlete at a high level would be individually looked after with their existing team services”.
European championships: Sports Tuesday, page 5
