ATHLETICS/World Championships: There's been a lot of reminiscing in Helsinki this week about the good old days. Apparently the Olympic Stadium was bathed in warm sunshine for the duration of the first World Championships 22 years ago - and such an array of stars! No matter what happens between now and Sunday these championships will be remembered as the wettest, coldest and windiest athletics event ever - and from an Irish point of view the worst ever. Ian O'Riordan in Helsinki

The Irish athletes weren't doing so well in 1983 until Eamonn Coghlan came out on the last day and destroyed the field in the 5,000 metres final. In the process he unwittingly set a trend that more or less continued up until Paris two years ago. One athlete bailed the rest of the team out with a big performance, and the vast cracks in the structures of Irish athletics avoided closer examination.

Sonia O'Sullivan did it more times than anyone. That she was our greatest - and one of the world's greatest - is undisputed, but it was obvious in Paris two years ago her glorious days on the track were over. So out came Gillian O'Sullivan to silence the alarm bells by winning silver in the 20km walk.

If there was any luck left in Irish athletics the same thing might have happened this week. Gillian O'Sullivan has been wrecked by injury for over a year, but still has the potential to make it back to the top of her event.

Alistair Cragg and David Gillick, who both won European Indoor titles just over five months ago, had no luck this summer either with injury. Cragg had been thinking about medalling here and Gillick's long-term prospects remain exciting.

But in a way their absence has shown up Irish athletics as it truly exists - struggling badly in terms of depth and potential, still third world in terms of facilities, and hopelessly lacking in high-level coaching.

And now it's officially the worst ever showing by the Irish at the World Championships the need to address those issues takes on unprecedented importance.

No one in Helsinki can recall any major championships - including the Olympics and Europeans - when all the Irish interest was over with four days remaining. And this in conditions similar to a March evening in Santry Stadium, which should be suiting us.

But any effort to assess the performances is done with a depressing sense of déjà vu. The same questions being asked now (where are the coaches, the facilities, the money?) have been asked by the grassroots of the sport after every championship, and every four years presented in costly publications known as Olympic reviews.

The Irish Sports Council has been tackling the structures of the sport for over a year now. There is a promising blueprint for the future of the Athletics Association of Ireland (AAI) in circulation, which includes the immediate appointment of a full-time chief executive and financial officer, and several full-time national coaches. For some inexplicable reason certain members of the AAI are resisting that change and the sooner they stop blocking the doorways the better.

None of the 11 Irish athletes came to Helsinki expecting to win a medal. They still didn't give us what we hoped for, but they did give us what we deserved. They must shoulder some of the blame, but not all of it. The word in the athletes' village this week is the mood of the Irish was down even before the championships began. Some athletes felt under pressure to perform or lose their grant. Others felt they needed to perform to prove they shouldn't have lost their grant in the first place. Something is wrong there.

It's easy to say we shouldn't send the athletes if they're not good enough, especially if they only have B-standards. But right now Irish athletes need every incentive they can get to stay in the sport. Take away the goals and the thing could die out altogether.

The British team are also having their worst championships, no medals so far and waiting on Paula Radcliffe to save their blushes. This is the nation seven years away from staging the Olympic Games. Sebastian Coe, the man who helped get them the Olympics, said yesterday that improved coaching - including overseas recruiting - was the only way forward, and the same goes for Irish athletics.