Work pays off for Loughnane

OLIVE LOUGHNANE delivered on the promise shown at last year’s Olympic Games when she won the silver medal in the women’s 20k walk at the world championships in Berlin yesterday.

The Olympic champion, Russia’s Olga Kaniskina, become the first woman in history to win back-to-back world championship walk titles in the shadow of the historic Brandenburg Gate but the Irish woman stole the show as she emerged from a ferocious battle with China’s Hong Liu to finish second in 1:28.58.

It was an historic weekend for race walking as the organisation departed from the traditional start and finish inside the host stadium and located the line at the famous landmark.

If Kaniskina was making her own history by becoming the first woman to retain the title, Loughnane was following in the footsteps of one-time training partner, Gillian O’Sullivan, who took silver behind Russian, Yelena Nikolayeva, in Paris in 2003.

And Gillian O’Sullivan was one of the first to text Olive yesterday to congratulate her achievement after a contest fought out in searing heat over 10x2km laps of a route up and down the Unter den Linden boulevard between the Brandenburg Gate and the equestrian statue of Alter Fritz.

And the heat would take its toll on a number of the competitors – not least last year’s Olympic silver medallist, Kjersti Platzer of Norway who was blaming her disqualification on fatigue. She was one of seven competitors disqualified while another big contender, Maria Vasco (Spain), the 2007 bronze medallist, retired due to the heat as did local hope, Sabine Krantz.

All of those were involved in the early skirmishes that established a leading group including Kaniskina, a second Russian Anisya Kirdyapkina, and the Olympic bronze medallist, Elisa Riguado of Italy, who was left hanging onto a top 10 placing in the end.

All the time Loughnane was tucked away, playing a waiting game. “I was just focused on myself,” she said. “At one stage it got a bit scary when there were about five people gone but I kept working. I didn’t realise I was doing all the work. I did not realise there were people around me at all. I was focused on going as hard as I could and I always knew that I am strong (later in the race). Last year I had the fastest second 10k in the race and I was not going to let that happen this year without bringing something home.”

Kaniskina was not as ferocious as Beijing last year but she started to impose her considerable will on the proceedings 30 minutes into the race when she pushed ahead and the field came apart in her wake.

By the 10km halfway point (44:48) the diminutive Russian had opened up a 21-second lead on Platzer and the Russian teenager, Anisya Kirdyapkina, who tried to respond to the pressure.

Both Platzer and Kirdyapkina were paying the price for trying to hang onto the leader by incurring warnings for lifting from the officials. Platzer dropped back through the field and at 15 kilometres 33-year-old Loughnane and Liu were locked in combat for the silver and bronze medals.

“I tried not to focus on a medal,” Loughnane said. “I tried to focus on the process. That was the worst thing that could happen that I’d get carried away. It’s a technical event and if I got carried away I could just end up losing control.

“I didn’t know I had the silver going into the last lap. She (Liu) was very quiet. I’d think I had her dropped and then suddenly she would be there again. I didn’t even realise I was getting faster. It was getting hard and I was getting faster and I knew she could only take so much.”

Kirdyapkina ended up fourth in 1:30:09 with Portugal’s Vera Santos fifth in 1:30:35 and Spain’s Beatriz Pascual, 1:30:40, repeating her sixth in Beijing last year.