So there we were. Gaping about Susan Smith, fretting about Sonia O'Sullivan, wondering where the rest of the Irish singlets were buried. We were doing all that and out of the corner of our eye we were marvelling at the Moroccans, the succession of green-and-red clad men and women streaking past us in major finals. Morocco?

How do we sophisticated Irish find a Sonia O'Sullivan? Fluke mainly. Take a kid who is so obsessive that she is out running the fields long after the cows have gone home. A local coach who nurtures the interest, enough success to sustain that interest, and then wait until an American college offers a scholarship. Then the talent is passed over like a relay baton.

Now that Sonia is rich and famous we bung her a grant every year because we think we are a great, sports-loving nation. Who knows? Maybe we are. The short odds bet is that any objective outsider would find us to be an island of self-deluding, fair weather sports fans.

What do we do for ourselves? The argument about facilities is well worn. How is it, however, that almost every great athlete and most of the middling ones we have ever produced have been buffed and polished by the American college system? Can we not take one of our great universities and graft a truly worthwhile track and field programme onto it, a programme which treats track and field like the profession it has become, not the extracurricular hobby it used to be?

In Ireland, athletics is a matter of luck. It's possible to be a sports-mad child and never participate in athletics right through your schooldays. The Community Games serve a useful purpose in this regard, but the follow through isn't there. Athletics have no formal place in Irish sporting life.

In Morocco, athletics careers don't happen by chance. Last night was a great night for the Moroccans. Hicham El Guerrouj's victory in the men's 1,500 metres final was a piece of destiny, sweet revenge for the disaster of Atlanta when, in the great and much-hyped showdown with Morceli, he fell.

Then there was Salah Hissou sloping into third place in the 10,000 metres, and Hicham Bouaouiche, the consonant-deficient steeplechase finalist, showing strong until the Kenyans ate him up.

It was a joy to see El Guerrouj come in from the night air and be deluged by happy Moroccans. This was their night, more payback for a steady investment in the business of winning athletics races. Next year the world cross country championships take place in Marrakesh. It will be like a homecoming, seeing an event like that take place in a nation which by graft and planning has made itself an athletics power.

Athens first. What a night! El Guerrouj had been coursing the great Morceli ever since Atlanta, becoming the second fastest 1,500 metres runner of all time and closing in relentlessly on Morceli's 1,500 metres record.

Before Atlanta, Morceli had avoided direct confrontation with El Guerrouj. When they went head-to-head afterwards in the grand prix final in Milan last September, El Guerrouj inflicted the first 1,500 metres defeat on Morceli in four years. The point was proven then maybe, but last night it was underlined and streaked through with highlight marker. El Guerrouj is the new king.

There is plenty more thoroughbred flesh in the stable for the Moroccans: Khalid Skah, the 1992 Olympics 10,000 metres gold medallist; Brahim Boutaib, the 10,000 metre gold medallist in Seoul; Khalid Boulami, the bronze medallist in the Olympic 5,000 last year and the world bronze medallist in the same event the year before; Smail Sghir, who finished right behind him; Zohra Ouaziz, bronze medallist in the women's 5,000 at Atlanta. More coming through also.

The Moroccans came to these finals under pressure to win medals. They haven't had major championship gold in five years, and, despite the slew of world records their athletes have broken in between, they considered five years to be an intolerably long period of famine. They were right too. The have created a great athletics system for themselves and deserve consistent reward.

It's not happenstance that they have a string of great athletes. They don't live at altitude, like the Kenyans do. They don't have an great college system, like the Americans do. But they have planned and programmed the world's best and most scientifically sophisticated running scheme.

They have a training development centre in Ifrane, near Rabat, for the top 60 or so youngsters between the ages of 16 and 19, where broader education is mixed with top-level coaching. Beneath that level, they have an extensive talent-spotting system searching for gifted youngsters, and a burgeoning programme of schools athletics.

All this is a legacy. When Said Aouita won the gold in the 5,000 metres in 1984 he became a national hero. Their Ronnie Delany. Their Eamonn Coghlan. Aouita wanted to leave something behind, however.

The National Athletics Institute is that gift. In honour of Aouita, the Moroccan's have spent money. They find their athletes early, give them the right diet, the right biomechanical information, the best coaching, grants to live on and places to live in.

"Without Said Aouita's youth training programme I would not be here tonight," said El Guerrouj to the tape recorders last night.

When Salah Hissou broke Khalid Skah's Moroccan 10,000 metres record in Brussels in 1995, for instance, the celebrations in Ifrane were muted. They brought Hissou home and analysed his run and why he wasn't covering the final 2,000 metres more quickly. They changed his whole style of running and sent him back out again.

Last night, while El Guerrouj was still in the press area, Hissou ran a brave 10,000 race but a tactically naive one. When the field dissolved down to six runners at the 8,000 metres mark he was there like a hawk on the shoulder of Haile Gebrselassie. With two laps to go he slipped hopefully past the peerless Ethiopian, who responded immediately. With 500 metres left Gebrselassie slipped into a gear which most humans don't possess. Hissou finished with bronze, the same as in Atlanta last summer.

Hissou is 25, however, with his best distance running years still ahead of him. In time he will be a great champion.

We Irish can only wonder if we are truly serious. It was startling this week to hear Moses Kiptanui speak about the coaching centre he has established in the Kenyan mountains amongst his tribespeople.

Kiptanui, still in his mid twenties, has a string of proteges already. One of them, Joseph Keter, beat him in last year's steeplechase final, another, Daniel Koman, is the 3,000 metres world record holder and is the favourite for the 5,000 metres this Sunday. Kiptanui now has a string of more than 30 athletes training at altitude on an old ranch. Foreign athletes visit Kenya just to learn.

In Ireland, we look at the Moroccans and Kenyans and shrug our shoulders and say, "Sure, aren't they made for it?" Maybe they are, but how many Sonia O'Sullivan's have we consigned to being bad camogie players because we don't provide the diversity of opportunity.

Watching the middle distance wonders in Athens last night was to know what it is like coming from a Third World sports country.