ATHLETICS:The Cork City Sports and Clonliffe's 125th anniversary meeting in Santry deserve the support of the Irish athletics public, writes IAN O'RIORDAN

MY ACCOUNTANT called during the week with the look of a man who had just won the lottery. “You won’t believe this,” he said, “I’ve just qualified for London. Not just the men’s 100 metres, but the tennis and swimming as well. My first Olympics!”

Fear not the obvious. This is not some surreal all-round sporting talent you’ve never heard of, suddenly bursting onto the scene, although he is prone to severe delusions of grandeur. My accountant had indeed won a lottery of sorts: all his numbers had come up in the ticket allocation for next summer’s London Olympics. Don’t ask me what he did to deserve it.

I told him to calm down, offered him a drink, and then said straight up – You need to start training, right away. There’s no time to lose here. You won’t know it until you’re sitting on the plane, wondering why you weren’t better prepared, and it’ll be too late then.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Stop messing around. What do you mean?”

What I meant was he needed to start attending some athletics events, not just watch them on his giant plasma TV – even if it is in high definition. He needed to sit in the stands, learn to watch the different events unfold, and maybe understand a little more about the effort still required to run under 10 seconds in the 100 metres, or four minutes in the mile. “You mean in 3D,” he asked, “only without the glasses? Fair enough. So any suggestions?”

Cork.

“Cork?”

The Cork City Sports.

“Are they still going?”

That was a good question. It used to be that the Cork City Sports were one of the real highlights of the Irish athletics calendar, and for good reason. I grew up with annual trips to the Cork City Sports, and have never forgotten the importance of witnessing the event live, and the inspiration it provided.

These days you won’t even see the highlights on TV. The 60th edition of Ireland’s last international track and field meeting, or at least one with a European Athletics Area permit, takes place this afternoon against the backdrop of very little publicity and even less sponsorship – both of which remain essential components of any athletics meeting.

The small, faithful organising team do their best to assemble a decent programme, with decent athletes, and while there are still several small associate sponsors, it’s nothing without the support of the Irish athletics public, although that’s seemingly the hardest thing to attract these days.

Two years ago they moved the event from its traditional home at the Mardyke Arena – due to flooding – to the excellent facility at the Cork Institute of Technology, in Bishopstown, although this probably hasn’t helped attendances either. Admission there this afternoon is just €10, which shouldn’t break anyone’s bank, and least of all my accountant’s. “That’s not bad,” he agreed. “But tell me, who’s running there?”

That was actually a good question too: for years Sonia O’Sullivan was the headline act in Cork, and more recently Derval O’Rourke, but unfortunately there isn’t anyone of such local celebrity status this afternoon. O’Rourke raced in Lausanne on Thursday, and has stayed in Switzerland to run in La Chaux-de-Fonds tomorrow, where she’ll also feature in the Irish 4x100-metre relay team looking to qualify for London. It’s a pity she won’t be there, and indeed O’Rourke has never actually won in Cork.

But Ireland’s Fastest Man is back: Paul Hession won the 200m in Cork for five successive years, before dead-heating last year with Brendan Christian, from Antigua, and both sprinters will go at each other again. Although the man to watch here could be Edward Alonso, from Panama, who some people might remember finished second, albeit a very distant second, to Usain Bolt in the 200m at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin.

The men’s 1,500m features Nick Willis from New Zealand, who won the silver medal at the Beijing Olympics and, given his similar ambitions for London, offers a sort of sneak preview of his potential to beat the all-conquering Kenyans.

Speaking of Olympic potential, Robbie Heffernan and Olive Loughnane will feature in the 3km track walk this afternoon, and while it mightn’t be the most glamorous event, they all count, especially when it comes to the medal podium. They may well be our best chance of all come London.

“What about David Gillick?”

There was always the danger my accountant would mention Gillick, given they went to the same school. I pretended not to hear, because that’s a story for another day, and told him instead about Clonliffe’s 125th anniversary meeting in Santry next Friday evening. This you have to come to, I said. It’s a short and snappy programme, and only a fiver admission! The main event is the Morton Mile, and last year the first seven all ran under four minutes.

It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve seen someone run a sub-four minute mile; it’s still a great thrill. But this modest yet ambitious meeting deserves the support of the Irish athletics public for other reasons. It’s a special year for Clonliffe Harriers. Founded in 1886, it’s now the oldest, continuous athletics club in the country, which is saying a lot, and boasts a illustrious hall of fame that stretches back to John Joe Barry, Dave Guiney and Frank Murphy, and more recently to Jerry Kiernan, Niall Bruton and, yes, Alistair Cragg.

The Morton Mile has been staged in various guises in Santry over the years, perhaps most famously on August 6th, 1958, when the Australian Herb Elliott shattered the world mile record with his 3:54.5 – the day before fellow Australian Albie Thomas also ran a two-mile world record of 8:32.0. Indeed part of next Friday’s event will be the unveiling of a new photo exhibit of those famous races, and hopefully that might inspire an assault on the Morton Stadium mile record of 3:53.80, which the American Steve Scott ran there in 1980.

A lot will depend on the weather, but the Morton Stadium now boasts exactly the same Mondo FTX track that they’ve laid in the new Olympic Stadium in London, and if they don’t break four minutes something will have gone very wrong.

There’ll be other events too – including the chance to see London Olympic and Paralympics hopeful Jason Smyth, who really is very impressive to witness in action.

“Right, count me in,” said my accountant. “Sounds like a good night. And it’s really only a fiver in?”

It sure is, I said, so you can start saving towards a trip to the World Championships in South Korea at the end of August.

“Great idea,” he said with a smile, “although maybe I could just crash in your hotel room.”

I told him to forget about that: it’s not just that he’s still got plenty of money, but that the way things are going in our place, if I do make it to the World Championships it is more likely I’ll be crashing in his hotel room.

Although it would be good training for London, wouldn’t it?