Revitalised O’Rourke bids for Beijing boost at The Mardyke

DERVAL O’ROURKE is hoping that the home fans will give her the lift she needs in advance of the Olympic Games when she returns to The Mardyke — where it all began for her — for today’s Cork City Sports.

It does not seem so long ago since she was the kit-carrier for the major stars — Olympic and world championship heroes that included Sonia O’Sullivan and her own Leevale clubmate, Marcus O’Sullivan — competing at Ireland’s premier athletics meeting at the venue.

Those were inspirational days but now she is the star who, unbelievably, has never won at Cork City Sports despite having won a gold medal in the 60m hurdles at the world indoor championships in Moscow three years ago, before battling her way to a silver medal in a fiercely competitive 100m hurdles competition at the European championships in Gothenburg.

Since then, there have been changes — if not upheavals — in her life. She has been plagued by injuries that caused endless stretches of frustration.

Early this year, for instance, when she was primed to defend her title at the world indoor championships in Valencia, she suffered a bruised heel in a hurdles session and, while the injury responded to treatment, her preparations were totally upset and she did not make it to the championships.

Never one to complain, she got on with what she had to do, trained hard at her new base in Bath and emerged a more powerful athlete than ever.

‘‘And that may be something of a problem,’’ she admitted yesterday. ‘‘I know I am way stronger now but I have not been able to put a string of consistent results together — 12.9 one day and then just the wrong side of 13 seconds the next.’’

With the darling of European hurdling, Susanna Kallur, struggling with an injury, Josephine Onyia, has been setting the track ablaze with a succession of wins, including a new Spanish record (12.50 secs) in Berlin.

Like Glory Alozie, who set five national records after arriving in Spain, she hails from Nigeria and, for Derval O’Rourke, the galling thing is that she was beating both of them out of sight not so long ago.

‘‘I know it’s frustrating at times but I feel right now I am getting things right,’’ she said. ‘‘We are working on a few things I have neglected.

‘‘What I would really like is to run something like 12.8 secs in Cork and that would give me the lift I need because I know I can run that.’’

The fact that she has never won at Cork City Sports is because she always faced strong international fields of in-form hurdlers just as she was launching her season.

‘‘When they (the organisers) asked me this time about the field I would like I told them the strongest possible field and I think they have done that. The Jamaican athlete, Andrea Bliss, is very good, Aurelia Tryianska from Poland is in the form of her life and Toyin Augustin from Nigeria and Marina Tomic from Slovenia have all run under 13 seconds.’’