ATHLETICS:The morning media runs in London were great, but Rio's famous beach has a greater allure. There's a long road though between now and then, but there's no time to waste, writes IAN O'RIORDAN

PAT BUTCHER writes one of my favourite blogs, the “Globe Runner”, never misses a beat, always a good story. Actually, he beat me to a good story this week, realising the perfect way of following up on the London Olympics was a two week vacation in Rio de Janeiro.

(First rule of sports journalism: never let a vacation get in the way of a good story; second rule: never let a story get in the way of a good vacation.)

Honestly, if there’s one thing we’ll all be reading about over the next four years, it’s how Rio can possibly follow London, on every level – including our own modest ambitions to win more medals, etc, etc. John Lennon always said that life is what happens while you’re busy making plans for the next Olympics – or something like that – and lots of people are busy at it already.

Anyway, Butcher has written about more Olympic Games than he can remember, yet it’s not entirely clear what he’s predicting from Rio, at least from the tourist trail. He describes the airport as “tiny”, and beyond a few cranes swinging over the Maracanã, there is no evidence of any redevelopment for either the 2016 Olympics, or indeed the 2014 World Cup, even if that’s a national operation, not just a city one.

On a more encouraging note, whoever said Rio is still one of the most dangerous places on the planet has never been there, at least not in the last five years, and Butcher found the temperatures at this time of year (the Olympics will run from August 5th-21st) in the beautifully pleasant low 30s, with no humidity. Sounds perfect. Best of all, he recommends staying close to Ipanema Beach, which has a 7km path that’s perfect for those early morning media runs made mandatory in London by our own Keith Duggan.

My plan now is to organise a good vacation in Buenos Aires, around this time next year, when on September 7th, to be exact, the IOC will announce the host city for the 2020 Olympics, and naturally enough there’s a lot of planning going into that, too.

It’s come down to a three-city race – Tokyo, Madrid and Istanbul – and if both London (beating bid favourites Paris) and Rio (beating bid favourites Chicago) proved anything it’s that no one can safely predict the winner. Indeed Doha had been one of the early favourites, before its bid was rejected by the IOC, along with Baku in Azerbaijan, while Rome actually withdrew from the race, figuring they had enough financial worries already. Who doesn’t Mario!

For what it’s worth my money is on Tokyo, not just because of some family ties from the last time they staged the Olympics, in 1964: Japanese efficiency and technology coupled with a reasonably stable economy and security is just what the IOC typically look for, and the fact that Japan has just enjoyed its best Olympics ever (winning 38 medals) will help sway the public support, too.

Istanbul is looking to make Olympic history as the first Islamic country to host the Games, but they face two major stumbling blocks. Turkey is already in the running to host Euro 2020, and the IOC don’t actually allow the hosting of another major championship in the same year, and then there’s the close proximity to Syria, currently in the throes of civil war, and looking like a long way off peaceful times.

Madrid is hoping it will be their third time lucky – having bid for 2012, and 2016 – but even if they’re claiming to have 75 per cent of potential Olympic venues already in place, the government’s bank balance will almost certainly scare off the IOC, unless of course the good old bribes still work.

London, meanwhile, is still counting the cost, or ideally cost-benefits, of staging the so-called ‘Greatest Games Ever’ – although such things are impossible to total: but good to see business is still booming at Remains of the Games, the website set up to sell around one million pieces of furniture, fixtures and fittings from the Olympic Village. At just £99, the bedroom sets, consisting of a bed, a mattress, a bedside table and a lamp, are being dispatched around the world, the only pity being they don’t specify which athlete actually slept in it.

The point to all this is that London is quickly disappearing in the rearview mirror, all the fast roads now leading to Rio. Anyone not moving forward is going to be left behind – and no one realises this more than the man in charge of Athletics Ireland.

John Foley is three years now as chief executive, and although better known for his previous role with Waterford Crystal, always considers himself an athletics man first. Like the best of our young talents, Foley followed the American scholarship trail in search of fame, if not fortune.

Those days are long behind him, yet he still dreams on, thinks big, has never lost sight of the potential of Irish athletes and Irish athletics. He told me as much this week, in our own little post-London debriefing, that Irish athletics is still in a good place, healthy and prosperous and growing in numbers, despite some the damning headlines that were written during and after the Olympics.

Foley was also the man who in May of last year unveiled Kevin Ankrom as high performance director of Athletics Ireland, possibly one of the most jilted positions in Irish sport. Foley went as far as to stake his reputation on Ankrom’s appointment, that Athletics Ireland had finally found their own “Alex Ferguson” – the important thing being he was given the time, and space, to work his way into the system, and ultimately implement necessary changes. No one expected an overnight sensation. No one really knew much about Ankrom to begin with. Although American born and raised, his main experience in athletics was in New Zealand, where he’d worked as their high performance director, for the previous four years.

One of the first things Ankrom suggested was that selection for major championships should never be a given, definitely not the “A-standard athletes who are professional qualifiers”, but for whatever reason, that never happened in London: athletes like Mark English and Brian Gregan, primed to get the job done, were left behind, while athletes clearly struggling with form were sent instead.

That’s all water under the bridge now, Foley knows, but there was a lot of other stuff too, plans and structures put in place by Ankrom that can move the sport closer to where it wants to be in 2016. Which is why Foley is standing by his man, and Ankrom, who never struck me as the sentimental type, is going to ride out the storm, even in the face of those who said his days were already numbered.

The days to Rio certainly are, also to Buenos Aires, and on to Tokyo, Madrid or Istanbul. At least by then Athletics Ireland will know if they had the right man in the right place at the right time.