Cork City Sports July 1986

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Cork City Sports 1986

Mardyke, Cork

Tuesday July 8th 1986

Marathon Magazine, Vol 24 No 6, September 1986

 Paul Donovan and Frank O'Meara
 

Report (PDF file) - Marathon Magazine, Vol 24 No 6, September 1986

WILY OVETT THE MASTER

Despite many problems (see Editorial), the 1986 Cork City Sports again provided a marvellous evening’s sport for a very disappointing attendance. The men’s mile and 5000m attracted most attention and both proved to be cracking contests.

Photos: Jim Dowling

Mile Action: O'Neill, Marie, Ovett, Taylor

Steve Ovett, always a very welcome and popular visitor to Cork, used all his old guile and experience to win the mile from Marcus O’Sullivan, Sydney Maree, Neil Horsfield, Tommy Moloney, who was having a great run, and actually led with 300m to go, and Gerry O’Reilly.

ABASCAL FAST

Abascal (15) sandwiched between Coughlan and Donovan

Jose Abascal, from Spain, played a waiting game in the Dairygold 5000m, leaving the Klimes twins and Mike McLeod to cut the early pace. In a speedster’s finish he had enough in reserve to outkick the old warriors, Walker, Coghlan and Waiga with Paul Donovan 5th. His winning time was an excellent 13:17.71, with John Walker also clocking a new PB of 13:19.28, not bad for the Olympic 1500m champion of a decade before.

Dairygold 5000m presentation - Larry Corbett and Denis Murphy, Mitchelstown Co-Op, John Walker, Jose Abascal, Eamonn Coughlan and Michael Lovett, Mitchelstown Co-Op

CMP 400m presentation - L to R: Finbarr O'Brien, President Cork City Sports, Mrs O'Brien, Neil McCauley, CMP, Dave Morris (Jamaica), Bert Cameron (Jamaica), Chip Jenkins (USA)

Elsewhere on the track the focus of attention was on world 4000m champion Bert Cameron of Jamaica, and Tom McKean, Europa Cup 800m champion, and both duly obliged. Kearney from Australia allowed for Ainsley Bennett and Ade Mafe in the 200m, while Lincoln Asquith had the measure of Elliot Bunney in the 100m.

CMP 400m - World Champion Bert Cameron, Jamaica

Garry Honey, 3rd in the L.A. Olympics, and Commonwealth favourite for the long jump, duly obliged in his speciality.

Gary Honey, Australia, showing good technique in the Long Jump

Davy Wilson won the Junior 800m, from Aidan O'Regan.

Junior Men's 800m with a lap to go

Liz Lynch (9) leads Women's 3000m

Imperial Hotel 400m - Presentation by Dermot Kelly to Patricia Walsh, I. Yerseyeva and Lorraine Baker

Judy Livermore Simpson in the High Jump

Marathon Magazine Editorial - Fr. Liam Kelleher

Editorial (PDF file) - Marathon Magazine, Vol 24 No 6, September 1986

Don’t blame Ovett, blame the “box”

Even the late entry of superstar Steve Ovett could not provide the mass injection of cash at the turnstiles that the Cork City Sports needed to offset the massive outlay incurred in staging the 1986 version of the renowned Cork City Sports. Indeed it is a tribute in itself to the dedicated organisers that the Sports went ahead with as many stars as previous years despite the withdrawal of major sponsorship from a company which shall be nameless, which was indeed surprising considering the great publicity “mileage” it must have got from its previous involvement.

Such is the fickleness of Irish businesses, particularly some that would make us believe that they have almost limitless resources. Not so discouraging though was the fact that smaller individual concerns were prepared in a limited way to bridge the gap and the organising committee must be particularly grateful for this. They must be grateful too to our National Sports body Cospoir who came to the aid of Cork Promotions for the 2nd time this year by injecting a reported 5 figure sum. There could be many arguments used to debate the merits or demerits of spending Government money in this way for the promotion of Sport but one thing is certain, such a prestigious Sports Meet cannot survive on such tenuous support.

Certainly from the spectator point of view the attendance was nothing short of appalling, and the question must be asked why on a fine night was spectator support lacking. We can’t blame Ovett and company, we can’t blame the media, we can’t blame the weather, we can’t blame the organisers, who or what then can we blame beside the public who did not support it.
I have no hestitation in blaming the “Box”. Most people now, whether legally or illegally, enjoy the privilege of multi-channel viewing and the fare served up by our neighbours across the water allied to the new found interest of our national network with the help of the EBS must give the most demanding viewer a saturation of top class athletics viewing during the peak summer season.

There is one major difference though between ITV and RTE and that’s where the kernal of the whole issue lies.
ITV are prepared to pay a massive sum for what they screen in Britain, while RTE to my knowledge pay little or nothing for the privilege of screening the few Irish meets, the Cork City Sports and the National B.L.E. Championships that they reluctantly condescend to cover.

It’s a vicious circle really. Why, you might ask, cannot the Cork organisers, like their British counterparts, demand a fee for the televising of their event? The truth is that if they demanded a fee they would probably get no coverage at all. Then without the TV coverage they would most probably lose the limited amount of sponsorship that they have. Surely with the popularity of athletics worldwide that the time has come for our National Network to recognise this and start at the right end of the scale by supporting a big meet here financially, whether in Cork or Dublin or wherever, bring in the top stars and then sell a package of the event to other TV networks. This seems the local and practical thing to do. We are all well aware of the massive amount of money involved in the Budd-Decker-Slaney re-match or should we say mis-match at Crystal Palace last year.

There is little doubt that the Cork organisers, despite their expertise, could not cope on their own on anything like equal terms with a situation like that without the help of massive sponsorship and more importantly without the help of real support from RTE. They have little less than a year now to make it work. Let’s hope for the sake at least of our home based athletes it does work.

Results of Cork City Sports 1986

 Men's Results

Archived Articles

Irish Runner

Marathon Magazine

Looking Back - 25 Years of BLE in Cork

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