Usain Bolt suffered a grade one hamstring tear at the Jamaican trials last night.
Jerry Kieran called this exactly right and captured the zeitgeist of TFK
**Jerry Kiernan: Olympics mean nothing to golfers
Former Irish Olympian Jerry Kiernan has said thereâs âno passion for the Olympic Games among golfersâ, and claimed the Zika virus is not a strong enough reason to miss this summerâs Games.
Irelandâs three best medal hopes in the sport - Shane Lowry, Rory McIlroy and Graeme McDowell - have all pulled out of Rio due to concerns over the virus, airing fears over the health of themselves and their families.
World number one Jason Day added his name to the list of high-profile withdrawals as he cited âconcerns about the possible transmission of the Zika virus and the potential risks that it may present to my wifeâs future pregnancies and to future members of our familyâ.
However Kiernan, who represented his country in the menâs marathon at the 1984 Games in LA, said that the main reason the players had pulled out was down to a lack of desire.
âI thought the whole notion of golf in the Olympics was pretty much ridiculous, in the same way I feel tennis shouldnât be in the Olympics and football shouldnât be in the Olympics," Kiernan told RTĂ Radio 1âs Morning Ireland.
âTo go to the Olympics and to do well, you couldnât wish for anything better.â
"Neymar, Messi and Suarez wonât be participating even though theyâre from South America, so golf and the Olympics, it just doesnât chime.
"I heard Padraig Harrington saying he dreams of playing in the Olympics â now heâs going to get his chance because everyoneâs falling by the wayside.
âThere is no passion for the Olympic Games among golfers. For the likes of me, the likes of Katie Taylor, the athletes who are going to go there, we dream about going to the Olympics; this was the apotheosis of our particular sport.â
Commenting further on his decision to pull out, Day said: âItâs a little bit different for us because we play week in week out⌠Golf has never been on anyoneâs radar in the Olympics.â
âThe World Health Organisation says that Rio is going to be perfectly safe.â
Kiernan claimed the withdrawals essentially boiled down to priorities, with an appearance at a Games being lower down the list of a golferâs ambitions than many of the other competitors who will travel to Brazil dreaming of a podium finish.
âTo go to the Olympics and to do well, you couldnât wish for anything better,â he added.
"Jason Day touched on it, he was pretty honest actually. He was saying, in a slightly roundabout way, the Olympics mean nothing to golfers.
âIf all these golfers really badly wanted to go to the Olympics and of it was the greatest thing they could do in sport, the Zika Virus would be pushed to one side because it really isnât that big of a deal because thereâs no instances, if I recall rightly, of people coming home after the World Cup two years with Zika issues.
"The World Health Organisation says that Rio is going to be perfectly safe. The athletes, the swimmers, the boxers, the rowers and the gymnasts, they have no problems with it at all.
âI suspect that it means far more to them, the Olympic Games, than it does to golfers.â**
Hopefully she will be treated as our greatest Olympic Champion ever should be, by flying her and Eric to Rio business class, courtesy of the taxpayer!
The whole event should be cancelled, itâs a fucking joke. There wouldnât have been a word about it in the press for the last two months only for the Golfers trying to make up excuses for not going.
Fuck sake, delete this immediately before the form gets closed down
Itâs surely libellous to call her our greatest Olympic champion ever.
Did anybody give a fuck during that glorious ten or so days back in 96, I and most others left a gig in Connolys of Leap to go across the road and watch her in her final event where bronze was a huge dissapointment.
Plenty of people gave a fuck.
Iâll not answer out of respect to rocko.
Assuming many of us were no more than teenagers in 96 were there really that many cynics at the time, maybe I was an awful innocent.
You still are.
Ah thatâs only likebait, not like you at all.
It would have depended on whether you read at the time.
I used to read the Echo every night, I donât recall much dissent that Janet Evans bitch got properly roasted though
It would also have depended on what you read at the time.
She was no bitch
Janet was a category A bitch actually. She couldnât accept it when our wee colleen whupped her and all the rest of the âeliteâ, and Mitchie not even having a 50M pool to train in here in the Republic!
but Billy Clinton knew the score
The lovely seashell is now a pillar of our legal profession.
Go figure.
She worked hard to get on in life, in fairness
Thatâs the main thing. Integrity is over rated.