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| Derval O' Rourke credit Irish Runner mag. |
What is in the water in Cork? Watching sprint hurdler Derval O’Rourke, local girl and 4th at the World Track and Field Championships 2009, race to bronze at the Cork City Sports yesterday made me want to give up on bottled water for good. Never mind the gold in them thar hills, there’s a ridiculous number of world class runners popping up around my hometown.
The thing I love about O’ Rourke is how positive she always is. You never hear excuses for missing out on gold by fractions of a second – no sore ankle or bad training day; she just accepts it and focuses on the next race. A few days before this meet she crashed through the hurdles in Germany getting cuts on her hip, ribs, arms and knees. Quite a few top athletes would have moaned on for weeks but O’ Rourke posted on her blog: “…On an entertaining side note adrenaline kicked in and I crawled (oh the shame!) to the line. I’m not sure why I did this. Somewhere in my brain I had to finish. To make things worse I got a big sympathy clap from the crowd…”
But when she got round again in Greece later in the week, she announced Sookie Stackhouse-style: “In your face demons I can run over all 10 hurdles!!!!!” Never mind the clichés, this is what sport is all about.
You can read more about Derval on her blog Derval's Blog
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