Costin could walk his way into something special

JAMIE COSTIN will get the Irish to the Olympic Stadium early this morning when he lines up for the 50k walk (8.05 am Irish time).

He may have been a long way from winning a medal but the young West Waterford man emerged as one of the heroes from the 50k walk at the Sydney Olympics when he made it to the line, dehydrated and clearly distressed, but got one of the biggest cheers when he declined any assistance and made his own way to the Mixed Zone. He spent some time afterwards on a drip but it was only after he had completed his assignment that he allowed the Olympic tattoo on his shoulder.

He has matured since then and his times have improved over all distances. In fact he also qualified alongside his training partner, Robert Kelleher, at 20k for those championships but opted for just the one race and comes with a personal best of 3:59:02 - a performance he could improve on here and with Irish race walkers on a roll right now he could do something special.