The officials were beetling around the stadium, letting it be known that they needed two more women to run in the 100 metres hurdles. The Grand Prix final in Japan was drawing the curtain on the athletics year and the organisers were anxious.
Not unlike any schools' meet in Belfield, the blazers were beating the bushes to flush out game runners to fill the vacant lanes. Not only were they seeking a couple of competitors to give the race a fuller look, they also didn't want the two local women to be the `fall gals' in a race of six. Any lame ducks would do.
Susan Smith had just run one of the slowest 400 metres hurdle event of her international career. Her 58-point-something for the lap was four seconds below her best. It was a grand collapse for a world-class runner in the most important circuit meet of the year.
Her face and body language told the story of 12 months dedicated to scaling the heights - the Olympic Games semi-finals, the World Championships final the month before, and she also had her marriage on the horizon.
Since Smith first made an impression in international athletics at the Olympic Stadium in Atlanta in the summer of 1996, her preoccupation has been to split fractions, accumulate strength and calibrate technique. While she has prospered in this pursuit, she has also taken herself to the brink of exhaustion.
"By the time that Grand Prix final came along on September 13th, I was completely shattered. Even for that race itself I was completely wrecked . . . oh God was I exhausted," she says. "Afterwards, when I came back to America, I had to take a complete break. I was just so tired."
But you don't turn down Grand Prix finals. You fight and scrape to get into them. Eight lanes, eight runners. Dozens of aspirants. That's how it works. When the organisers came sniffing for the 100 metres event, Smith was still paddling ashore after the 400 metres run. But she stepped forward.
"So they got me and my friend from Iceland to run in it, expecting us to come seventh and eighth to the two Japanese girls," she says. "It's funny the way it turned out. We came fifth and sixth. They came seventh and eighth."
On the back of a lamentable 400 run, Ireland's only World Championship finalist at Athens, on a whim, smashed the Irish record with a 13.22 second run. For Smith it brought back memories.
She was weaned onto the 400 metres hurdles from the 100 hurdles, an event which requires greater precision and quicker execution. As a result, her strong technique, which has frequently shown through over the longer distance, has been a keystone of her strength. She will matter-offactly tell you that her hurdling technique is the best around.
"The 100 metres hurdles is my first love. I'll run a couple of them next year. That's where I came from. I've been threatening for a long time to run the 100, but I just haven't had a race and with my hamstring the way it was, I didn't want to tempt fate. I was scared. It is a totally different race."
When she came back from Japan, Smith rang up Ronnie Long in the BLE offices in Dublin to declare her time. "I've a new Irish record," said Smith, "for the 100 hurdles."
"Did you check the wind?" said Long.
The 2.1 metres per second breeze put her effort one-tenth of a second over the limit. It was wind assisted.
Still, for Smith it was a measure of just how far she had unknowningly progressed. The shorter record will come in time. She knows it.
There is little likelihood, however, that she will move down to the shorter event. The 54.61 seconds run in the World Championships semi-final brought her a new 400 metre hurdles National record before she bottomed out in the final. It was her only National record of the year. In 1996, she broke the record six times.
However, to earn a lane in the last eight in the world was special. It was the first time an Irish woman got so far in a sprint event since Maeve Kyle made the semi-finals of the 400 and 800 metres in the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Now living in the US college town of Athens, Georgia, where her husband Ryan Walsh studies law, Smith trains full time. Her sponsorship deals from TNT and Asics, combined with her running ability and marketable looks, have eased the burden of fitting two careers into one life.
"It's unbelievable the difference it has made to me. I feel so much better right now. My training hasn't changed much - maybe better quality. Maybe a little more volume, but not much - it's just the better quality I've concentrated on.
"I'm going to stay in the States until later in the season and if I want to go warm-weather training, I'll do that here, too. I hope to run early here, probably April, so that I can get all the slow times out of my legs. "I started last year with 57s in all the early big races. That was because of injury. I'm hoping that won't happen this year and I'll have all those slow runs finished by the time I start the season. It takes time before you start running decently."
Last year, Smith partially wintered in Ireland, put on layers of clothing and faced the sleet at Santry. That, alone, took a bite out of her enthusiasm. Then the hamstring problems arrived. Her work with Coopers and Lybrand didn't help. Hassle. Plenty of hassle. But her focus remained sharp. This year has been hassle free. She has simply her training and track future to worry about. Only Smith and the rest of the world.
Europe is the next stepping stone. She understands that success has no fixed point. It moves along with the career and is measured on completion. She is still building and every year the athletics merry-go-round offers an opportunity. In 1998, it is Budapest and the European Championships. The year after, another World Championships, and then the Sydney Olympics come into view.
She is ranked second in Europe with just decimal points separating another 10 or so runners. In the Athens final, only one European finished ahead of her. The winner, Moroccan Nezha Bidouane, was a surprise champion. Fourth-placed Ukrainian, Tania Tereshcuk is likely to be Smith's main challenger in Budapest. The other five Athens finalists were either American or Jamaican.
It would be tempting fate to try and predict what will happen this summer. But in the past, Smith has peaked for the big events, a gift that does not come easily to every athlete. Only championships whet her appetite.
"My whole career, everything I do, is about championships, so I'm always going to try and peak for them. I didn't really know what to expect from Atlanta because I was going in blind and I'd never run against those girls. But that's what I wanted. In Athens, I knew it was a huge thing, but a final is what I wanted. So far, it's gone the way I've planned.
"At the Europeans, obviously I'll shoot for the final and see what happens. I'd like to be in the top five. That's the way I'm thinking at the moment. But I like championships and hopefully I'll pull it out again.
"The chance of a medal is not unrealistic. But I'll start the season before I set my goals."
Her national record of 54.61 seconds needs to be trimmed to the low side of 53 seconds if she is to become a player in the big events. One way or another, some athlete will run that fast.
She knows, too, the feel of running against the best, the reading of races and the foibles and strengths of her opponents. The Dion Hemmings and Kim Battens and Tanya Buford-Baileys are no longer just names attached to Olympic and World Championship gold medals. They are fallible and familiar, simply athletes. Just turned 26, Smith will be coming into her prime over the next few years. She's in no hurry. Openly ambitious and sure of her direction, she is not afraid to fail.
"Deep down inside, I know what I want and I know what I want out of my career. But you really like to see how things develop. I'm happy that at championships I've really hit my times. Look back and you can see that."
