Cragg comment.

I was more than a little surprised to read the headline piece this morning with PJ Browne. I’ve never met PJ so I can’t comment on his credentials as a journalist but he has completely misrepresented the quote on Alistair Cragg from The Irish Times. As athletics correspondent with the Irish Times for the past 10 years and the author of that article I’d like to make a clarification.

That was an opinion piece I wrote during my coverage in Beijing. I like to challenge myself as a writer. I never underestimate my reader. So in the spirit of Oscar Wilde I wrote a deeply sarcastic piece to express how I feel the Irish athletes are often unfairly perceived at major events such as the Olympics:

This is the article I fear PJ has great misrepresented and I would like to make that clear. No Irish journalist has been supportive of Alistair Cragg over the years and I will always regard him as one of the best athletes we’ve had. Anyway, for the record, here is the article in its full and proper context:

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Athletes take rap for now but real solutions are long-term

Ian O'Riordan on why failing to properly prepare, in terms of facilities, is only preparing for failure

“

WHEN AN athlete steps on to the track at the Olympics it's not simply show time. It's something they've worked towards for years; it's life-defining as, with the whole world watching, their Neil Armstrong moment arrives. Yesterday, David Gillick didn't even step out of the spaceship.

One small step back for Gillick.

One giant leap backward for Irish athletics.

That's the danger of coming to the Olympics with any sort of expectations. If you fail to reach them, and those around you have failed as well, you better be ready to take the rap.

"This is the Olympics," said Gillick. "Every race is tough, but I had aspirations of making the final, and now, my Olympics are over. That's another four years. But I'm not going to make excuses. That's not me. I'm shell-shocked. Gutted. I'll hold my hands up and say I ran crap. And I'm out."

So who is to blame? Should he have been sent up there in the first place? Was he properly prepared? What is Athletics Ireland playing at? Who really cares, because he's going to take the rap anyway, and has at least four years to realise that.

When things go wrong at the Olympics, there is nowhere to hide. You can't blame your team-mates and the manager won't get the sack. You can say you felt tired or your knee hurt and that will sound like an excuse. You can hold your hands up and say you ran crap.

Or else you could have stayed at home, and joined the chorus of disapproval watching the Olympics through their TV guide. There are multiple facets to Olympic participation, but the one that matters is on the small screen.

So all our athletes are crap. We deserve better than this. This is taxpayers' money. We want to see finalists or personal bests and maybe even some medals.

And of course we do. There comes a time when an athlete's failure deserves some hard questioning, and Gillick's failure was certainly one of those times.

Is he training hard enough? Has he bulked up too much? Has he fallen into the comfort zone? Has he got too high an opinion of himself? Gillick didn't even step out of the spaceship yesterday and that demands some answers.

It doesn't matter that he's won two European Indoor titles for Ireland. That he left his family and friends to base himself at Loughborough University in England, because the facilities and coaching simply aren't available in Ireland. That he's put four years work into getting it right at the Olympics, only to see it go inexplicably wrong.

That demands some answers.

And what about Derval O'Rourke? She was miles off her personal best - which is actually a bit of a cheap argument, because less than 10 per cent of athletes run personal bests at the Olympics. The bottom line is she looked a shadow of the athlete that won World Indoor gold and European outdoor silver, and that demands some answers.

And where have all our distance runners gone? Róisín McGettigan made the final of the steeplechase and bombed. Why aren't more athletes coming through the US scholarship system anymore, like Delany, Murphy, Coghlan, Treacy, O'Sullivan, O'Mara, Sonia, etc?

We've pretty much agreed by now that Alistair Cragg is a loser, but then he's not really one of ours anyway, and Pauline Curley was practically an embarrassment in the women's marathon - even if she epitomised the last remnants of the Olympic spirit.

Who wants to see a 39-year-old amateur finishing the marathon when we have Michael Phelps chasing eight gold medals in the Water Cube, all carefully orchestrated for NBC and their 2,000 broadcasters in Beijing (only one of whom, by the way, is staying on for the Paralympics)?

But that's drifting off the point. There are real and difficult questions facing Irish athletics and it can't go on like this. Like where is the proper indoor track Ireland has been crying out for since around 1980? Where are the proper coaches - the hard, demanding coaches - like every serious athletics nation has? What is the point of giving athletes any more grant money when they're clearly wasting every penny of it?

Radical change will require some radical action, and there are several model examples. Britain have spread their investment far and wide and are cleaning up in the cycling velodrome and down in Qingdao. Sweden don't fund their athletes but built 23 indoor training tracks and have one of the best teams in Beijing.

They are the long-term solutions. We can blame the athletes for now, or else we should have kept most of them at home to begin with, because as things stand, that's the only alternative…”

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2008/0819/1218868120194.html

Anyway, when Cragg made the 5,000 final I wrote:

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Cragg is down but not out

IAN O'RIORDAN at The Bird's Nest

ATHLETICS:

“IF YOU didn't believe in Alistair Cragg, if you didn't rate him or understand him or even particularly like him, perhaps you'll believe him now. Because after delivering one of the more honest Irish performances on the hot track here in Beijing, he then felt driven into delivering the most honest performance off it.

Even those that have followed Cragg's career with the sort of respect and admiration it deserves would have been astonished by the way he stepped out of character - clearly pressed to breaking point - and said what he felt needed to be said. No more letting the negative vibes and comments get through to his psyche…”

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2008/0821/1219243767329.html

STILL, some people didn’t seem to get the original context of my article – and on the Saturday wrote:

The following Saturday:

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Our athletes need ringmaster to crack the whip

IAN O'RIORDAN

ON ATHLETICS: Irish athletes are crying out for direction and leadership and could do with a figurehead who has a deep knowledge, writes Ian O'Riordan

“

It's the point Alistair Cragg was trying to make during his emotional confession on Wednesday night after qualifying for the final of the 5,000 metres, and also the point I was trying to make earlier this week when trying to sum up the Irish performance in Beijing. There is an enduring problem with the way Irish athletics is doing its business, and it's certainly not the athletes' fault.

Saying that Cragg was a loser and that David Gillick has got it all wrong and that Derval O'Rourke would be better off disappearing back down to Cork was said in perverse irony, based on the notion that this was how their approach to the sport was being perceived. Apparently not everyone got it.

Cragg said he was sick and tired of the negative vibes that seemed to be permeating from the top down and the only surprising thing about that was how long it took him to figure it out. He said he and the rest of the Irish team were constantly being compared to athletes of the past, and usually lambasted for not coming up to their standard. He asked where these athletes are now, when help is needed.

Well three of them are back at home where their only Olympic role is as guest television pundits. A couple more are coaching in America and doing an excellent job. Another one is involved in the general running of Irish sport but may as well be running for office.

In other words, none of our so-called greats of the past are being properly utilised for the betterment of Irish athletics in the future, in the hands-on role where their experience can be maximised. And that's really all Cragg was trying to say….”

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2008/0823/1219417001861.html

Finally, a week later, back in Dublin:

Saturday, August 30, 2008

No place like home to get lowdown on Beijing

IAN O'RIORDAN ON ATHLETICS Friends and associates insist on bringing me up to date as to what the Olympics - and I haven't the energy to contradict them

“

On Thursday morning I was pulling up weeds from the driveway of my house, as you do, when a neighbour passed by and asked, "Did you enjoy the Olympics?" I really didn't have the energy to answer, which was fine, because he did all the talking. He told me how RTÉ's coverage was brilliant, especially the lads talking about the athletics.

"Do you know they called Alistair Cragg a loser?" he added. "Very strong stuff, it was."

I wanted to tell him it was I who had actually called Alistair Cragg a loser, but that I didn't mean it, that I was being deeply ironic, that I still believe Cragg is one of the most talented athletes I have ever seen. Had no one sussed that, yet? But I just didn't have the energy to go into it….

Cragg had made a big deal about former athletes criticising the Irish in Beijing instead of offering help. It's a valid point, but former athletes criticising the Irish in Beijing isn't half as bad as hearing it from people who wouldn't be found within 50 miles of an athletics meeting from one four-year cycle to the next, who wouldn't recognise Alistair Cragg if they knocked him off his bike, and some of whom were critising Irish performances while actually in Beijing, despite being away the whole time covering a boxing tournament….”

© 2008 The Irish Times

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2008/0830/1220023440777.html

word has hit he on his way to becoming a us runner

The original sarcastic piece was good, but unfortunately many inish athletics fans seem to have no sense of humour or irony, and a limited ability to detect sarcasm. The author should not have been too surprised by the response to his piece!

Source?

SELLING wrote:

word has hit he on his way to becoming a us runner

Gents,

I'll mail in to make my opinion known but i wanted to write my piece here too. PJ Browne's article on Irish athletics is just plainly mis-informed. It starts with an incorrect premise (about Ian O'Riordan's article in the Irish Times) and continues on to compound the error throughout the article.

Ian O'Riordan is currently the only print journalist that writes regularly about Irish athletics in a national paper. He continues a trend that his father set before him. In a country that basically ignores the sport in the time between Olympics and the generations between truly world class performers, he gives the sport publicity where others don't. In the last few months he has written articles that actually are a must read (you need to change the homepage comment where you state this), namely one about former NCAA champ Keith Kelly that you should link on the homepage.

PJ Browne splits his time between Ireland and the US according to the bottom of his piece. He clearly needs to spend more time in Ireland to becomre familiar with the scene over here. The arguement that the general sports media over here is out of touch with athletics is completely true but accusing one of our only journalists dedicated to the sport is ludicrous.

Where was he after the Sydney Olympics when Tom Humphries (also in the Irish Times) wrote a farcical peice where he disagreed with Mark Carroll's views on the trials of trying to peak twice in an Olympic summer due to the qualification restrictions. To write a piece quoting O'Riordan out of context 6 months after after the time shows a lack of research and a lack of respect. It is, in fact, the type of 'jump to conclusions journalism' that makes so much of the Irish media so poor. Fans with typewriters should not be given the space.

Paddy.

The Letsrun editors just put a note in the article . . . but have left the quote of the day on the front page. Seems like bad judgment to me. The article should be taken down until the facts are corrected.

If you writers are considered the sages of Irish athleticis,with your sarcasm and farcical pieces then clearly the sport is in serious decline.And so is Irish humor,wit,literature and journalism.

We'll take him!

Keep up the good work Ian you're the only quality athletics journalist in Ireland at the moment(well does your dad still do thew odd bit aswell?).

That one in the Indo doesn't have a clue in comparison.

Nice article on PC today.

Sorry, I guess I missed the discussion on why Cragg chose to run for Ireland in the 1st place...

Why Why Why?

pretty simple really,A good nation with a bit of athletic history, allowing him to compete in competitions which he can really compete in, ie. Euro champs!! Also his coach has strong ties with Ireland. Plenty of reasons!! If he ran for the US would really be torn apart, just like you do for a lot of your top athletes. For example Alan Webb, who just 18months ago ran 3.46 and 1.43 yet he is a joke because he is having a rough parch. Cragg is relatively well respected in Ireland, and any poor press he may get is all part of the sport and media in general. There is nobody who supports Cragg more than Ian. Having that quote on the main page is mistake that needed correcting!!

Alicia Silvestoner wrote:

Sorry, I guess I missed the discussion on why Cragg chose to run for Ireland in the 1st place...

Why Why Why?

When you learn proper syntax,please, post back on Irishrunner.com .

Ianoriordan wrote:

it was I who had actually called Alistair Cragg a loser, but that I didn't mean it

oriordan is a loser.

YOu have it right about be able to run in major events like Euro's etc. Running for the US was never a thought. He is not a US citizen and therefore is unable to run for them. He can become a citizen ala Lagat, but he never had to choose between running for Ireland or the US his choice was to run for Ireland as opposed to South Africa (where he was born and raised). Being that making a South African team while not living in the country is about as easy as beating Sammy W with only a weeks worth of training, Ireland was a great choice.

YOu have it right about be able to run in major events like Euro's etc. Running for the US was never a thought. He is not a US citizen and therefore is unable to run for them. He can become a citizen ala Lagat, but he never had to choose between running for Ireland or the US his choice was to run for Ireland as opposed to South Africa (where he was born and raised). Being that making a South African team while not living in the country is about as easy as beating Sammy W with only a weeks worth of training, Ireland was a great choice.

cragg works at kfc in by the university up the hill