ATHLETICS: We can't say nobody warned us. There couldn't be any excuses this time. Moscow was the obvious place to do it. Still, it was some shock to the system, and the next time two Irish athletes perform like this we'll definitely be avoiding Russia's famous celebratory drink.
But it was the only way to toast Derval O'Rourke's gold-medal run over the 60-metre hurdles on Saturday night, probably the greatest success story of these World Indoor championships.
O'Rourke suddenly has the potential to truly dominate this event at world level, and that assertion has nothing to do with excessive consumption of vodka.
By the time you read this, we'll have given Alistair Cragg a similar toast, fully aware of the consequences.
Cragg had moved beautifully into fourth at the bell of yesterday's 3,000 metres final. Unfortunately he had three of the world's greatest distance men ahead of him, and that was where he finished. In any other edition of these championships Cragg would surely have medalled, and it doesn't take a gambling man to predict that some day he will.
Of course no one in Moscow predicted O'Rourke would win gold, and to be honest no one in Ireland did either.
Except, of course, her coach, Jim Kilty - the man who's also predicted a medal in the Beijing Olympics. And that was long before what happened here.
What is certain is that, at age 24, O'Rourke has become the most exciting prospect in Irish athletics since another Cork woman, Sonia O'Sullivan. Suddenly Beijing can't come around quickly enough.
Everyone knows there's a big difference between running indoors and running outdoors, but not necessarily in the sprint hurdles. O'Rourke revolutionised her technique over the winter, and this victory is perhaps only a hint of what is to come. For now, it's rocketed her to stardom.
O'Rourke was back inside Moscow's old Olympic Palace yesterday to collect her gold medal, plus that $40,000 cheque - and apparently suffering a little herself from the previous night's celebrations. For once she struggled to hold back the emotions when the Irish flag was raised, and we needed to keep reminding ourselves than this slim, sparrow-like figure had just won one of the most explosive and technical events in athletics.
And even then Saturday's victory was still sinking in. Ireland's first female gold medallist at this level (O'Sullivan won silver in 1997) joins our other great winners, Marcus O'Sullivan and Frank O'Mara, and extends our medal count in these championships to 10. Yet rarely has any medal been won with such confidence and determination - and even 24 hours afterwards you'd swear O'Rourke had won the Community Games, not the World Indoors.
"That's the thing," she said. "I was just treating it like any other race. That's what everyone was telling me. So I think I believed so much that I would win, and wanted to win so bad, that it just wasn't that surprising.
"But I woke up at 5.30 this morning and I think it hit me then. And up there on the medal podium I just about held back the tears. It's not very often you get to see the Irish flag being raised like that. So that was very special."
She still hadn't watched a repeat of her race, and when she does it will be hard to find any fault. It was close, only .03 of a second separating the medallists. Or the width of your vest, as they used to say before electronic timing.
But she had run the race of her life, lowering the national record again, to 7.84 seconds, while holding off seven of the world's very best hurdlers.
Considering she had never even made a major final it was a massive breakthrough coupled with a dramatic improvement.
Yet the only thing even remotely suspicious about O'Rourke's career so far is how she managed to get such a cushy job at the DCU sports centre. Since linking up with Kilty five years ago she's made slow but steady progress, and sometimes athletics provides just rewards like this ahead of time.
Sometimes though, just rewards have to wait. Cragg had given himself every chance of a medal in the 3,000 metres, moving into fourth over the last two laps, but eventually succumbed to the finishing speed of Kenenisa Bekele, Saif Shaheen and Eliud Kipchoge - the three world kings of distance running.
"You have to make sure you're there when the kick starts," he said. "I just got ahead of all the guys I knew I could beat, so I suppose I have to be happy with fourth. If you have to finish behind three guys I suppose they're the three you'd want."
Neither Cragg nor O'Rourke could have run any better in Moscow. The only difference is what they're wearing round their neck when they leave here this morning.
REPORT: page 7
