Six weeks ago, Derval O'Rourke brought the curtain down on one of the great Irish athletics careers and tonight the former World Indoor champion joined us in her home county of Cork for the Off The Ball Roadshow in Crane Lane to talk about a range of topics including how she is faring in the nascent part of her post-retirement career.
"Retirement is mainly good. I have funny moments. I watched the Commonwealth games and the hurdles came on and I felt a bit cranky about that. I think I'll find it hard to see the hurdles at the Europeans next month. But in general, I'm mainly relieved," said O'Rourke.
She spoke about a range of topics including the nature of composure, nerves and pressure in the high-adrenaline world of athletics.
"If you walk into a stadium and there are 80,000 people and essentially you're asked in a moment to run for your life, for your whole season, a lot of people just don't like that," she admitted, describing her own method as "controlled aggression".
She also cited Beijing 2008 as an "absolute disaster" in her career, when she exited at the first round of the Women's 100 metre hurdles and explained how she learned from that setback.
She also mused over the reasons why Corkonians excel at sports, picked former Man United and Ireland footballer Denis Irwin as one of her favourite Cork sportspeople and contrasted rugby running styles with athletics.
O'Rourke also feels the Irish women's rugby team has "done so much for women's sports just by beating New Zealand" and feels it is important to invest in women's sports.
Download the brand new OffTheBall App in the Play Store & App Store right now! We've got you covered!
Subscribe to OffTheBall's YouTube channel for more videos, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for the latest sporting news and content.
