Breakfast with Sonia. Barely able to swallow your cornflakes because you worry about her, right? Worry that something might go wrong, that she won't be herself. D'you know, Sonia has close on four million Irish mammies whenever she takes to the track. Even your average, 7ft, 18st anger-management-course-attending Hell's Angel with 16 GBH convictions comes over all maternal when she's running on the box.
We don't even call her Sonia O'Sullivan, we call her Sonia. Like the lunchtime news on RTE yesterday: "Sonia wins her heat in Sydney". Can you imagine Dan Rather saying "Marion - she's part of our world tonight". No, he'd never be that familiar. Instead, it'd be "Jones has calamitous Olympics - flops miserably in long jump and takes only silver (after taking four golds in her other events)".
We love Sonia like she's our own, which of course she is, and most of us would die happy if she had a shiny goldy roundy medal in her luggage on her return home. But we worry about her. ("Is she looking a bit pasty?" "Is she a bit thin about the face?" "What's she done to her hair?" "Oh Jaysus, I can't look - I'll be in the back garden, call me when it's over.")
I'd estimate three-quarters of the country were in their back gardens yesterday morning around the time it looked just a teency weency bit like Sonia was struggling. By the time she kicked for home, 200 metres from the end, to win her heat there was no one left in front of their tellies. Just as well Sonia was more relaxed than her four million mammies.
When they tip-toed back indoors, a few hours later, they switched on Aertel, page 410, and these were the headlines that greeted them: "O'Sullivan cruises through heat", "Fellow runners fail to qualify", "No joy for Irish coxless fours", "Brizzell outside personal best", "Reilly bows out of women's 100m", "High jumper misses out on final", "McHugh fails to make cut", "Heffernan finishes well down" and "Gibney bows out of 2000 Games". Mmm. Sonia? We wouldn't dream of putting any pressure on you at all, but guess how many medals we're very probably going to win if you don't do it for us on Monday? Divil a one. Hopes of an entire nation and all that. Hope you've strong shoulders. We'll be in the back garden - call us when it's over.
No joy for Breda Dennehy-Willis in the 5,000 metres after she finished 13th in her heat. Inconsolable, distraught, she spoke to Tony O'Donoghue for RTE News after the race.
"I know I'm better than that and I'll prove it again that I am. I will, I'll come back," she vowed. Ah janie, sometimes this Olympics carry-on would break your heart. Of course everyone has different expectations. "My last Olympics finished in less than gold," as Trinidad sprinter Ato Boldon referred to his bronze in Atlanta when he spoke to the BBC's Steve Cram. Less than gold? Crikey. Ato's a dude, though, probably the most quotable athlete on the planet. "How do you divide attention between the 100 and 200 metres," Cram asked him. "Well, it's kinda like having two kids - you don't divide your love, you multiply it, right?," he said. Chuckle.
British shot putter Mark Proctor is slightly less quotable, to be honest, unless you use lots of bleep bleeps. After fouling in the first round he stomped, a tad menacingly, towards one of the cameramen and said "Do you speak English? I won't tell you again - **** off." Lovely.
The continuity announcer on Network Two was having a laugh, surely, when she welcomed us to the evening's Olympic viewing. "The excitement carries on through the night," she said, "but first we bring you Bill O'Herlihy and Talking Sydney". What's she trying to say?
