There was a time when the emergence of an athlete such as Marion Jones, the American former basketball star turned sprinter/long jumper, would have been major news. Poised to revise the 100 metres and 200 metres world records set by another American, the flamboyant Florence Griffith Joyner 10 years ago, Jones could plausibly win five gold medals at the Sydney Olympics.
It sounds wonderful, but the reality is that no one really cares anymore. Athletics, never mind women's athletics, has lost its glamour as well as its credibility.
Jones (22), currently about five metres faster over 100 metres than any woman in the world, has apparently revived interest in athletics in the US, but track and field has never been more than a minority sport there, quite unable to complete with the attractions of American football, ice hockey, baseball and basketball. Elsewhere this once most televisual of sports is in decline.
Many of the European Grand Prix events, which heralded the introduction of disco gear worn by camera-conscious athletes, are no longer being televised. While drug use and commercialism have devastated many international sports, no sport has been as damaged as athletics - particularly women's track and field events. Long before drugs became a sordidly routine issue, there was often speculation about the gender of many outstanding female competitors.
While all major competitors are obliged to undergo random testing throughout the year, as well as before competition, women athletes are also sex-tested. Few things are predictable in sport, but when the European Athletics Championship begin in Budapest tomorrow, it is highly unlikely that any women's world records will be broken, even if the Russian Olympic 800m and 1,500m champion Svetlana Masterkova is on top form. However "drugs dirty" the sport may now be, it, ironically, may be a lot cleaner than it has been.
Women's athletics went through a dazzling golden age between the early 1970s and the late 1980s. For much of that time the sport, the world records and the championship titles were dominated by East European athletes, particularly those representing East Germany - the GDR had the most formidable athletics squad ever assembled, from the Munich Olympic 100m and 200m gold medallist, Renate Strecher (still in the medals at Montreal four years later) to Marita Koch. The East German women enjoyed a strength over 100m, 200m and 400m comparable to that of the US men.
At the time of writing, the women's world 400 metres record of 47.60 set by Koch of East Germany in 1985 still stands, as does the fabulous 80 metre javelin mark established by her countrywoman, Petra Felke, in 1988. Gabriele Reinsch, also of the former GDR, still holds the now 10year-old world discus figures of 76.80. Jarmila Kratochvilova's remarkable 1:53.28 for 800 metres set in 1983 still stands. Now 15 years old, that record still looks unbelievable - as indeed did the burly, heavily-muscled Czech athlete. The long jump world record of 7.52 now beckoning Marion Jones was set by Galina Christyakova of the Soviet Union in 1988. The sole survivor of the GDR old order is Heike Drechsler, the 1992 Olympic long jump champion who also holds Olympic 100m and 200m bronze from Seoul as well as a long jump silver. As enduring as Jamaican sprinter Merlene Ottey, Drechsler has long sustained a girl-next-door appeal.
Many landmark world records were set and quickly bettered during the reign of GDR and Soviet athletes. It seemed that every time a GDR 4x400m relay team competed, there was a new world record. The Soviet Union had fine middle and long distance runners and mighty throwers.
But now many of the finest performances achieved are suspended in a twilight zone of doubt. It is as if a generation of champions has been devalued and the myth-makers must look further back to heroines such as the graceful black American, Wilma Rudolph. Crippled by polio as a child, she won both sprints at the Rome Olympics and remains one of the sport's immortals. As is Poland's Irina Kirszenstein-Szewinska, Olympic medallist in four games, spanning Tokyo to Montreal.
Irish women's athletics has been dominated for several years by Sonia O'Sullivan and Catherina McKiernan, and increasingly by World Championship 400 metres hurdles finalist, Susan Smith. The country celebrated as young Emily Maher returned home from the inaugural World Youth Olympics with 100m and 200m gold. But we should not overlook women such as triple Olympian, Maeve Kyle, Claire Dowling Walsh, Mary Tracey Purcell, Caroline O'Shea, Mary Appleby Barnwell, Deirdre Nagle; throwers Patricia Walshe and Marita Walton, or sprinter Michelle Walsh, winner of 31 national titles. They all emerged when international standards were at their most surreal. But they made it possible for the O'Sullivans, the McKiernans and the Smiths.
Claire Walsh, who did much of her training on the roads near her Co Sligo home, reached the European 800 metres final in Helsinki in 1971. The following year, she competed in the Olympic 800 metres. Also competing at Munich was newcomer Mary Tracey, later Purcell, one of the most important, pioneering figures in Irish athletics.
Intense and obsessive, Purcell, now a pharmaceutical consultant, not only radicalised Irish women's middle distance, but she pioneered the 3,000 metres and later the marathon for Irish women athletes. Having won the 1972 British AAA 800 metres title, she set off to St Moritz for six weeks of altitude training. The project backfired and she ran poorly. In 1973 she retained her AAA title and was competing well internationally. By 1976 she was well ranked internationally. The Montreal Olympics, however, was another disappointment.
Purcell was well aware that drugs were part of sport. "You had to ask yourself the question, `do I want to cheat to win?' I was not prepared to but I knew I was competing against those who were using drugs." Purcell finished sixth in the 1979 World Cross Country Championships. Her brave achievement was overshadowed by John Treacy's successful title defence.
Deirdre Nagle won the British AAA 3,000 metres in 1979, a year after competing in the European Championship 3,000 metres. About the same time Mary Barnwell, a hockey international and versatile athlete, while concentrating on the 800 metres, had began to explore a new event, the 400 metres hurdles. She reached the European Championship 400 metres hurdles semi-final in 1978 and won the British AAA title. Fourth in the inaugural women's 400 hurdles championship race in 1980, Barnwell finished behind three East Germans in an Irish record of 56.51. It stood for 16 years.
"It is only with hindsight and all the drug revelations that I realise I must have been better than I thought I was." Although meeting the qualifying standard a year before the Los Angeles Olympics, she broke her ankle during training and did not get there. "It was the biggest disappointment of my career."
All of these athletes had more than talent in common: they were all home produced. By the late 1970s, Caroline O'Shea, while still a schoolgirl, had emerged as Ireland's leading 400 metres hope. Possibly the most naturally gifted athlete Ireland has ever produced, setting national records for 400 metres and 800 metres - the latter which stood from 1984 until 1994 - O'Shea, in common with Purcell and Barnwell, trained in Ireland. Her career was dogged by injury but she was the first Irish woman to reach an Olympic final, competing in 800 metres in Los Angeles, a Games admittedly weakened by the Eastern bloc boycott. Now a chartered surveyor with AIB Investment Management, O'Shea says she was aware of the rumours circulating about drugs when she was competing but deliberately ignored them. "You wouldn't be able to compete otherwise."
"I think people overlook the fact that there is more to drug taking than popping a pill. Many of these drug takers are gifted athletes to begin with. They still have to train. The drugs help them to train harder." Is she disillusioned? "Yes. There's a cloud over the sport. I admired Koch, she was a magnificent athlete with a wonderful stride. But now I don't know. Irina Szewinska was also marvellous, naturally gifted. And I'm sure she was clean. She would always be a heroine for me."
Ulrike Meyfarth won the Olympic high jump title in Munich in 1972 before her home crowd. Her career never really developed. Sixteen years later however, she regained her title in Los Angeles. Meyfarth's story, begun in a fairy tale, certainly concluded in one. If only the story were the same for women's athletics in general.
