ATHLETICS:Anyone who has tried to run on an injured Achilles tendon can imagine how Alistair Cragg hurt physically in yesterday's European 5,000-metre final - but few can imagine his emotional pain after dropping out. His dream was to win this gold medal for Ireland and failing in that could hurt him for years to come.

Cragg had that look of total devastation as he was carried off the track, his left Achilles heel echoing the myth in proving the fatal weakness. He wasn't able to contain the tears and later, as several of his Irish team-mates tried to console him, Cragg was still wiping away those tears, hardly able to describe just how much all this did hurt.

He'd had the injury for five weeks - on and off - but kept it to himself and his coach, John McDonnell. Cragg had come here to win gold. There would be no excuses. He made his bid for glory as planned with three and half laps remaining, yet just over 200 metres later his race was over. He stepped off the track, fell to his knees, and buried his face in his hands.

"I started off and my Achilles was as tight as a rope," he said, the words punctuated by tears and spells of anguished silence. "I could hardly get going . . . Marius Bakkan ran a 64 (second) lap and I battled to get up on his shoulder. Then I think it warmed up a bit, and with all the playing around it felt okay . . . But then we were only jogging, 75-second laps or something stupid.

"But I made my move, as I'd discussed with my coach. I was scared, though, what might happen. I was tempted to sit in. But I had to do what we'd decided on. Just after I moved there was a very sharp pain. I was tempted to sit back again but it just started burning on me coming down the home straight. Once I hit the next bend I was gone."

Cragg's surge had stretched the field, and nothing that happened thereafter suggested he wouldn't have won. Spain's Jesús España won in 13:44.70 - the slowest winning time since 1969 - and there were only three others in the medal hunt.

That's what will hurt Cragg most of all whenever he thinks back on what happened here. Again he could hardly describe what was going through his head as he stepped off the track.

"The second you step off you want to step back on . . . I just thought I'd had enough lows . . ." and then he broke down again.

It was unbearable to watch. He was later embraced by his father, Raymond, and then McDonnell, who had travelled from America to watch his star pupil become Ireland's first male gold medal winner at these championships.

McDonnell, as it turned out, needed some consoling himself.

"I was aware he had this injury for four or five works but was working on it," he explained. "He thought it was okay. He's such a strong-minded kid that he just said he'd be fine when the race got going. He said he'd be hurting in other places not worth thinking about.

"He was prepared to give it everything he had. He wanted to win so bad. And he was in the right frame of mind. His pain threshold in enormous, I can tell you that. But it's heartbreaking for him. He's so proud to run for Ireland. He wanted to win this medal. And I know he's taking it very, very hard."

The Trojan hero Achilles died from an arrow wound to his heel, the only vulnerable part of his body. Of course no one died here yesterday. It just seemed that way as Cragg struggled to accept his fate.