Twelve years ago I saw the future of Irish athletics, and her name was not Derval O’Rourke. Of the many talented young athletes that made those 2002 European Championships in Munich, the

girl from Cork didn’t stand out as anything above the ordinary.

Her event, the 100m hurdles, was all about raw speed, brute power and flawless technique. And O’Rourke, just turned 21, appeared noticeably short of all three: she was eliminated in her opening heat, running 13.41 seconds, which still wasn’t bad for an event where Ireland had no international tradition, but a long away from the best in Europe and even further from top Americans and Jamaicans.

O’Rourke had other ideas, and by working on those basic qualities of sprint hurdling a mere four years later she would be crowned world champion. Now, 12 years on, O’Rourke retires from the sport as one of our most successful athletes on the international stage, her reputation for repeatedly defying the odds possibly putting her in a category of her own.

Having recently turned 33, O’Rourke admits it “feels like the right time” to retire and it almost surely is. She missed most of last summer with injury, and while making another European Championships in Zurich in August was certainly a possibility, “going to a championships, just to be there, isn’t me”.

Some people thought O’Rourke went to the 2006 World Indoor Championships in Moscow just to be there: no Irish athlete had even made the final in that event before, and indeed O’Rourke hadn’t yet broken eight seconds, until running 7.90 that winter. In Moscow, she improved her Irish record in every round, finishing off with a brilliant 7.84 in the final to win the gold medal. Top American Danielle Carruthers was only fourth and top Jamaican Lacena Golding-Clarke finished sixth, almost falling over in her effort to catch O’Rourke.

Close finish

Later that summer in Gothenburg, she become only the second Irish woman – after Sonia O’Sullivan – to medal at a European outdoor championships, running another Irish record of 12.72 seconds. Four years later, in Barcelona, she won silver again – beaten by a Turk’s head, as in Nevin Yanit from Turkey.

Yanit won gold again at last year’s European Indoor championships in Gothenburg, with O’Rourke finishing a close fourth. A month later she was done for drugs and with that O’Rourke was promoted to the bronze medal position. She also won European indoor bronze in 2009 and retires with five major championship medals.

In some ways her greatest race was one where she didn’t win a medal, but finished fourth. In 2009, having struggled all summer to break 13 seconds, she went to the World Championships in Berlin and defied all expectations by making the final, then finishing a close fourth, her 12.67 again bettering her national record, and the fastest time by a European in 2009.

She struggled with illness at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, but qualified for every major championship from 2002-2012, including three Olympics – Athens, Beijing and London.

Hampered by injuries During that time she

has also won nine Irish outdoor titles, and 11 indoor. And her current Irish record of 12.65 seconds – set in Barcelona in 2010 – looks set to stand for a long time.

While the plan was for O’Rourke to target one more European Championships, in Zurich in August, her preparations have been hampered by injuries. Her decision to retire is perhaps perfectly timed – just like so many of her races over 100m hurdles turned out to be.