Loughnane takes pressure in her stride

IT is easy to forget that only two years ago, Olive Loughnane was the 12th fastest female race-walker in the world over 20k. But the statistic seemed to get lost in the hysteria after her team-mate and friend Gillian O’Sullivan claimed a world championship silver in Paris.

Two years on, O’Sullivan is battling back from injury and Loughnane is heading to Helsinki, to another world championships, in the hope of creating more headlines.

“It will be exciting,” Loughnane said yesterday. “This year, I adopted a different approach. I have not competed as much as in other years.