Robert Heffernan has only one thing on his mind — another medal

At 12:30am tomorrow morning Robert Heffernan will toe the line in China looking to replicate his gold medal- winning performance in Moscow at the IAAF World Championships.

Things haven’t gone smoothly for the 37-year-old Corkman since he won gold in the 50km Race Walk in 2013, having being beset with a number of injuries, including a double hernia after the European Championships in Zurich last summer. But he will go into the heat of Beijing with the intention of winning a medal.

“I feel good,” said Heffernan of his chances and his shape going into Beijing. “Obviously I had two hernias in Zurich and got them fixed afterwards. The earlier part of the year I had to get a qualifier for the Olympics and I’ve put everything into the second half of the year. I feel good, my training’s gone well, I’m in a good place mentally and physically and if I’m in a good place and ready to give a good performance, I’ll hopefully have a good result.

“As long as I’ve filled out my forms for the (Irish) Sports Council since 2001, and they ask you what you want to do, I say ‘I want to win a medal.’ I think it’s very important that if I can control what I can do and deliver a good performance and not get obsessed with other stuff, like people saying the Russians are gone. I still have to be able to perform, as we found out in Zurich, when something is wrong, everything unravels. If I deliver a good performance and do what I can do, then I can give a good performance.” Another Cork legend, Sonia O’Sullivan, believes Heffernan will be in his best physical shape but there will be a certain amount of unpredictability due to the distance, and toughness, of the event.

“Obviously he knows what it takes to be a world champion,” said O’Sullivan who won world gold over 5,000m in Gothenburg in 1995 and will celebrate that feat with a run in Cobh on September 19. “He appears to have matched that preparation this year but that doesn’t guarantee the same result because of the extreme of the race.

“Even though the preparation has gone well, you then want the race to go really well. Alongside the marathon it’s one of the most unpredictable events. There’s no doubting he’ll have done the preparation and gotten into the best physical shape possible.”

O’Sullivan also views it as a different challenge for the Togher athlete: defending a world title. “You don’t have the same motivation,” she said on defending a world title. “It’s more of a burden than a motivation. It’s easier to pull out a performance when you’re trying to do something you’ve never done before because then you’ve nothing to lose. But once you’ve actually been the champion it’s a little bit harder. It’s more of a burden and an expectation.” Heffernan has cut out all distractions and went on a 28-day altitude training camp in Ifrane, Morocco – the same camp he went to prior to Moscow. “Morocco was very, very tough,” said Heffernan. “we just slept, trained, slept, trained, there were three pools where we were staying and if we spent 30 minutes at the pool in total in the month it was a lot, you’re just counting down to the next session.”

It will be the same mindset and mentality for Heffernan as he gets ready to face tough conditions and competition from the Chinese along with Slovakia’s Matej Toth.

“I don’t feel different (to Moscow) because after London (Olympics) and Barcelona (Europeans in 2010) I always went in with the expectation of trying to win a medal,” he said of his approach. “Then after last year (dropping out) it was a good experience for this year, stay healthy, relax, don’t overcomplicate things and hopefully I’ll have a good result.

“Conditions are going to be very tough, so it’s a different race. They never bother me, but we were training at altitude at 2,000m up to 35 degrees.

“The Chinese are going to be very strong, Matej Toth of Slovakia, the time he did (3:34:38 in Dudince in March) was phenomenal and then you’ve the pack athletes, a couple of surprises.”

Competing alongside Heffernan in the morning heat of the Chinese capital will be his training partners Alex Wright (Leevale) and Brendan Boyce (Letterkenny). More importantly on race day will be his wife, Marian, who will be supporting on the side of the road. “Marian’s brilliant,” said Heffernan. “Without Marian I’d have no support, we’ve a great system and we’ve created it ourselves. She looked after us out in Morocco, did all our drinks, all our video work, looked after the kids.” Tara is the most recent addition to their clan of Meaghan, Cathal and Regan. Like most of Ireland, they will be at home watching and hoping for another good result.