Daniel Caulfield reckons he can teach a few lessons in how to pick yourself up after a letdown. When he steps on the track later today as Ireland's lone man in the 800 metres, Caulfield can finally feel some tangible vindication after a journey that began nearly two decades ago.

Yet at 28, an age when most athletes are thinking more about the day job than making the breakthrough, nothing about the past can cloud his enthusiasm about the future.

It was sometime last month that Caulfield decided he was going to Edmonton. As the only Irish athlete with an 800 metre qualifying standard to his name, his chances always looked good. But there was the matter of winning the national title, something that had slipped his grip on four previous occasions.

"The last national title I had won was at the Community Games, aged 11. If I had the A-standard I wouldn't have been concerned, but when you've been beaten into second as many times as I have, well you have to be worried."

Significantly, his early season form had been inconsistent. A couple of half-baked races didn't help his confidence, so the week before the nationals he took himself to Finland and ran 1:47.1 - a feel-good effort and his third fastest time ever.

"For a while I just wasn't putting it out there. I have no problem getting beaten, if I've given it my best effort. But I just wasn't sticking my neck out." So to Santry, and a neck stuck way out. Hitting the front down the backstretch, he strode home metres clear of his rivals for national title number one. With it came his ticket to Edmonton.

"I would have hated to see myself the night before the nationals if I hadn't had that race in Finland. I mean, I'm known as a nervous runner at the best of times."

But it wasn't always nerves that got in the way of his breakthrough. Some of it had to do with injury, some of it to bad coaching, and some of it was down to bad luck. Each time he'd set something up, something would knock him down.

When he first left his native Roscommon to pursue his dreams Stateside, Caulfield didn't present the most striking athletic pedigree. Even today he looks more like the man that should be firing the gun at the start rather than the man ready to run. Yet he stuck to his trade with unbending self-belief.

For most of the 1990s, Caulfield's name would occasionally surface in domestic athletic circles. A decent run indoors or a good show at nationals, but the hair-pulling results still persisted.

Then came the build-up to the Sydney, and the road seemed to straighten. Based back in America, his times came down and the Olympics looked possible. Yet his chances for a qualifying standard came and went, and time to pick himself up again.

Still deferring the day job and living off mostly borrowed money, he spent a few weeks sleeping on a friend's floor in New York and chasing times on the indoor circuit. Out of the blue he ran 1:47.21 in Boston, a new national record, and enough to send him to the World Indoor Championships in Lisbon.

His first time in a green vest at a major international and his first time to mix it with the best, he produced some sturdy running to make the semi-finals. Afterwards, he discovered that effort had earned him with a grant, somewhere around seven grand.

"That has obviously helped enormously, and to be honest I've been really looking forward to running in Edmonton. I've been up against the top names before, and even when I'm lining up alongside Andre Bucher I'm not afraid to try and pass. I feel like I am mixing it with the best now.

" To be honest, I never felt as much pride as I did in Lisbon. You're out there, and in my mind it is just country against country, regardless of how good the individuals are."

For the last week he has been focusing on the challenge at hand. Not that Edmonton provides too many distractions; on the drive from the airport the other night, inquiries about the nightlife were met with blank faces. Then a stray dog across the road, and the driver responded: "That's the nightlife right there."

In a slow run race with tactical burn-up, Caulfield can definitely test the best of them and that's exactly what he's planning on doing: "I've always wanted to represent the country well and I wanted to get to Edmonton to do it. So right now I feel now like I am the best man to do the job here."