Squared eyed

I'm not sure if it is a saying that is still used, but they used to say that if you watched too much TV you would end up squared eyed.

Unlike Keith Gerrard, who said in his interview last week that he didn't have much interest in sport on TV, I could watch it all day if I had time (but I wouldn't get this website done if I did).

After yet another "slowest runs of my life" sessions first thing in the morning I set about watching Match of The Day and all the action from the World Championships yesterday (it can be reduced dramatically with the aid of the 30 times forward if you are watching BBC) in between the various motor cycle races. Family duty this afternoon prevented me from watching all the football but what a fantastic night of athletics, which I watched live.

The reason that I write about this was because although I have so much of a backlog of things to write about, the news that Olive Loughnane had won a silver medal in the world championships changed all my plans for the site.

When people achieve fame there is a tendancy to suddenly only remember all the good points about them and rather like the scene from "Chariots of Fire" we suddenly all claim to have predicted what they were going to achieve.

I am not going to do this. It was through the coaching work of Michael Lane and the hospitality of Allan & Gladys Callow that Olive first came to the old Manx Airlines meeting in 1996.

I always enjoyed meeting the Irish Walkers and in 2000 I recorded the interview which I published on YouTube last year. The film included her collapse at the end of the 20km walk in which she set the qualifying time for Sydney Olympics.

She raced here again in 2005 and returned with company in 2006. Not only did she bring her sister Ann to walk but she was also expecting. It was that year that I was on the same table as her at a Manx Harriers social and Marie and I enjoyed a long chat with her.

If she had never race walked again I would only ever have had nice things to say about her. Olive is as kind and thoughtful person as you could ever meet.

The fact that she has achieved even greater success in recent years shows that we must all stick to our targets even though the end result usually takes far longer than we imagine.

So although I don't know Olive as well as many others from the Isle of Man, and didn't predict her success, hearing of it made me think how happy all those that are really close to her must be for her if I felt so pleased.

So as soon as the athletics coverage was over, I disconnected my square eyes from the TV to find some photos of Olive and dedicate the website to her today.

To hell with all the other things I was going to do.

It was just a shame that when I wanted to flatter her I could only find very unflattering photos, like this one.