ATHLETICS:In my unofficial poll of Irish athletes this week, there was broad support for this, particularly, and inevitably, among those who didn't fare so well here in Barcelona, writes IAN O'RIORDAN

YOU KNOW it’s been a long week when your eyesight starts giving out. Not in the Jason Smyth sense, naturally. What the partially-sighted Derry sprinter achieved here in Barcelona has been greeted with a mixture of fascination and admiration, and perhaps some uncertainty. If Smyth is not disabled in strictly physical terms, what’s the big deal about him mixing it with the best sprinters in Europe?

Truth is, there is no real way of quantifying what Smyth has accomplished here, the obstacles he has overcome, mentally if not physically, to become the first Paralympic athlete to compete at a European Athletics Championships. What is certain is that he’s handled the demands brilliantly, won plenty of plaudits and is still some distance away from reaching his full sprinting potential.

And from the outset all he has ever claimed is that he wants to establish himself as a world-class sprinter who happens to be a Paralympian, rather than the other way round. There is no arguing with that.

Smyth’s unique feat has also put some extra demands on us this week, as if we weren’t busy enough. I was stopped at least a dozen times by foreign journalists in the mixed zone, looking for further information on Smyth, while trying to keep track of our other athletes. And it has been a hectic week – mostly 14-hour days, as all 33 Irish athletes come in and out of the action. This column is actually being finished over a quick bite of paella, having just returned from the 50km walk, where Robert Heffernan finished an excellent fourth, again, before heading back up to the stadium, again, to prepare for the certain drama involving Paul Hession and David Gillick. No time for siestas this week.

That’s not looking for sympathy, but merely to point out that these championships, for us anyway, are pretty much a non-stop six days. Once every four years that’s not so bad; but now, we’re told these championships are being staged every two years, over a non-stop five days. And that, understandably, has created mixed feelings.

At the 2007 European Athletics Congress, 47 of the 50 member federations voted for the integration of a second championship into the four-year cycle – awarding the 2012 Europeans to Helsinki. In other words, there will be a European Championships every two years, just like the World Championships – the difference being one of those Europeans will now fall in the same summer as the Olympic Games. They’ve partly compensated by reducing the competition to five days during that Olympic year, staging the walks and marathons only every four years, and scheduling it for late June. So, the 2012 Europeans will run from June 27th to July 1st, and the London Olympics will begin less than a month later, on July 27th.

In my unofficial poll of Irish athletes coming through the mixed zone this week, there was fairly broad support for this, particularly, and inevitably, among those who didn’t fare so well here. Yet the way Joanne Cuddihy explained it made sense. She’d effectively retired after the Beijing Olympics, mostly because of the stress and strain that resulted from putting all her eggs that season into the Olympic basket, only for injury to cruelly deny her the chance to taste the final product the way she’d hoped.

After taking a year out, Cuddihy was gradually drawn back to the sport she clearly loves. Time was against her coming to Barcelona, after injury again interrupted her preparations, although she still wasn’t that far off making the final of the 400 metres.

“I think it’s a great idea, absolutely,” she said. “This time last year I was backpacking in Indonesia. Part of my encouragement to get back was to come to the Europeans. I actually think having only the Olympics in one year, and putting all your efforts into that, is almost too much of a burden. I would see the Europeans in 2012 as a good stepping-stone to the Olympics. Why not? I mean, nearly every other country has a big competition that year. The US trials. The British trials. And we’re just left floating. Plus, we know they’ll be somewhere near, in Europe, so they can’t do that much harm. And you can bet your socks the standards are still going to be really high.”

Mark Christie, who endured what he described as a “totally disgusting experience” in failing to make the final of the 5,000 metres, also reckons another Europeans in 2012 won’t do him harm. “Four years ago I missed out on qualifying by one second,” he said. “Another four years would be another long wait after this.”

The assumption there is that Christie realises he’s never going to medal in the Olympics, probably never make an Olympic final either, but if he sticks at it and eventually gets a break he might just do something in the Europeans.

Charles van Commenee, head of British athletics, is a little less sure. Commenee has a reputation for knowing exactly what he’s talking about, and has unquestionably helped revive the British tradition of winning medals. He said at a press conference this week any athletes who compete in the Europeans will be “dead and buried” come the Olympics.

“It’s like everything in life, if you get too much it’s detrimental,” he said. “You will not see any of my athletes who qualify for the Olympics also in Helsinki. Not in the track events anyway. That may be different for the field events, because you don’t have to throw three or four rounds. I also think too many titles creates inflation. It becomes less valuable. Maybe the European Association will evaluate after one or two times and determine what the future will be for the European championships. But I’m not a big fan of it.”

There is the danger that staging the Europeans in an Olympic year will become a sort of “B-standard” championship, where somehow the medals wouldn’t be as important as those won in a non-Olympic year.

That’s not saying that for many of the Irish athletes in action in Barcelona this week the 2012 Europeans can’t come around quick enough. Although I really cannot see that far ahead right now.