Sonia O’Sullivan believes that the Rio Olympics will be the cleanest Games in decades as more rigorous and more advanced drugs testing practices are put in place.
Sport, and athletics in particular, has been left reeling following a string of high profile doping scandals in recent years.
O’Sullivan may be in line for a retrospective World Championship 3,000m medal after two of the three Chinese athletes that finished ahead of her at Gothenburg ’93 admitted systematic doping.
“We had a lot of success beyond the medals last time, we had quite a lot of athletes who finished in the top ten, made finals, achieved personal bests"
Athletics’ world governing body, the IAAF, has been fighting a rearguard action for months following a string of revelations about corruption and cover-ups.
Despite this, Irish sporting legend O’Sullivan says she will have faith in the athletes competing at Rio 2016, which gets underway in August.
“You have to be realistic when you watch the sport,” admitted the Cobh woman, speaking to RTÉ Sport.
“It is a worry, you do get sceptical and you do begin to question things, but you have to just believe that because there are so many athletes getting caught and there is a lot of work being done in that area that it will be a lot cleaner and a lot fairer for the athletes going there.”
O’Sullivan was Chef de Mission at the London Olympics, meaning she was in charge of the entire logistical operation involving athletes and team members.
She saw up close Rob Heffernan finishing fourth in the 50k race walk, where he was beaten by winner Sergey Kirdyapkin, who has since been banned for doping.
Heffernan was recently upgraded to bronze and O’Sullivan says one of her highlights in Rio is going to be watching the Cork man try to get on the podium.
“Being awarded the bronze medal from London, and he had such a great performance out there, I think he has it in his mind that he wants to get physically on the podium,” she said.
“It’s one thing to be reallocated the medal, it’s another to get out there and achieve it on the day. He knows deep down that he’s missed that and I’m sure he’d like to replicate it. He has every chance.”
London 2012 was Ireland’s most successful Olympics ever both in terms of medals and participation.
This time around the Irish team could be even bigger. Currently there are 62 qualified athletes with 20 more in the running, which would make the team nearly one third bigger than last time around.
“It’s going to be a bigger team this year, something like 80 athletes and maybe more. If you have more athletes there’s a possibility of more success,” said O’Sullivan.
“We had a lot of success beyond the medals last time, we had quite a lot of athletes who finished in the top ten, made finals, achieved personal bests. That increases the belief in Ireland that if they work hard they can actually do this.
“You take stepping stones and athletes that qualified last time around, if they are going again, they are going to their second Olympics so they don’t go so much into the unknown. They have that experience, they know what it takes and they know how to prepare for that.”
