Heffernan joins elite medal club

Heffernan’s reaction to missing national record:

“Aw was I? I missed it, ah shit! I didn’t realise with 200m to go and I was putting the hands up. Ah it doesn’t matter.” It certainly didn’t. His winning time of 3:37:56 may have only been two seconds outside his own national record he set in London last year but it’s the gold that mattered.

No longer Mr Fourth

Up until yesterday, Heffernan had a series of fourth place finishes at major championships. It led him to being labelled in one athletics publication as “Mr Fourth” having finished one place outside the medals over 20km and 50km at the European Championships in Barcelona in 2010 and last year over 50km at the London Olympics.

Heffernan joins elite gold medal club

Robert Heffernan’s gold medal-winning performance put him an exclusive club of three Irish athletes to have won a global title at the World Track and Field championships. He joins Eamonn Coghlan and Sonia O’Sullivan who won gold over 5,000m in 1983 in Helskini and Gothenburg in 1995 respectively.

Travelling community inspire success

Heffernan draws inspiration from the travelling community and the tales of the Joyce family in particular. After the national indoor championships this year he visited Joe Joyce and gave him his gold medal — his 15th national indoor title.

Baby announcement after golden moment

Heffernan announced his wife and coach Marian was four months pregnant after the race and that he will have to change to the supporting role. “I’ll have to put in the hard yards now.”