O’Rourke: Really important to be in final

DERVAL O’ROURKE has not been at her best this season but expect her to put all those disappointments behind her when she contests the heats of the women’s 100m hurdles tomorrow morning (2.20am Irish time).

Her preparations have been almost uninterrupted and she ran her fastest time outside of a championship race when she clocked 12.84 secs to post her Olympic and world championship “A” standard at Le Chaux De Fonds in just her third race of the season.

But, while she has been flying in training, she has not been putting it all together and had a disastrous run in the Samsumg Diamond League in Crystal Palace the day before she came back to win her ninth Irish senior title.

So, she will again be relying on her innate courage to get her through to the final in Daegu and, after that, who knows?

“I’m frustrated I have not run as well in races as I have in training,” she said. “At the same time I have that thing at the back of my mind that I know it’s about Daegu.”

Two years ago she came off an early season beset by injury to finish fourth in the world championships in Berlin and last year not only made the final at the European championships in Barcelona but came away with another silver medal having set a new Irish record at 12.65 secs.

“I know how difficult it is. I know how fast it is and I know that you have to work for every inch and if I get anything wrong at worlds I won’t run 12.6 so I have to be very ready to run fast,” she said.

“I think I am definitely capable of it. I wouldn’t bother coming to Daegu if I didn’t think I could run well. But it’s not a foregone conclusion that I will go out there and run a pb. I don’t feel I can go there and show up and flick the switch. I know I have to fight very hard. I don’t have any fear of it.

“I have been to the final in all the major championships in recent years so I need to be in that final, it’s really important to me. Then when you are in there you deal with it. The important thing is to do a really big semi-final to get into the final.”

Like Derval O’Rourke, sprinter Paul Hession took care of his Olympic qualifying standard when he retained his 200m title with a 20.51 sec run at the Woodies DIY National Senior Championships in Santry after a frustrating build up.

He missed out on a place in the Olympic final in Beijing by a mere fraction and has been itching for another shot at the big time ever since.

He finished sixth in the final at the Europeans last year and tomorrow he will launch his world championship campaign at 3.10am (Irish time).

Despite false starting in her semi-final of the women’s 400m Joanne Cuddihy did enough to grab the attention of the promoters and has been short listed for the Samsung Diamond League in Brussels the week after next.

Tomorrow morning (4.10am) she will join the Irish team for the 4 x 400m relay heats.