Tip your hat to the man from the top of the road

The much-hyped London Olympics is nearly upon us and the man on which most of the media attention will be focused is confident he can live up to his billing. 'The Honourable Usain St. Leo Bolt' is how Wikipedia title him. To us mere mortals he's just plain old Usain Bolt. From humble beginnings in Kingston, Bolt is, as we speak, a five-time World and three-time Olympic gold medallist and without question the man to beat over the shorter distances at major championships. 

Bolt's done it all in his chosen field to date but there's more to come surely?!? 'If I'm in great shape nobody will beat me in London', the 25-year-old, in typically confident mood, proclaimed recently. Records are sure to fall, Bolt will seriously threaten a number of them, perhaps shatter them. However, there's one record Bolt is unaware of, a record that will be broken by a man, far from the glitz and glam of Stratford. That record will be broken where glitz and glam are in short supply, the Gaelic Grounds on the road out of Limerick city, heading for Ennis.

The day I met a giant

A few months back a Prime Time debate about secret manager payments in the GAA was chaired by the unusually quiet Miriam O'Callaghan. On the night in question I was following the #primetime Twitter stream (Twitter is all the rage these days!) and decided I wanted to add something to the party. I wanted to say something profound but I was at a loss... In the end I retweeted @HMFerry's offering which read, 'It's the amateur status that makes the GAA unique, and the best sporting organisation in the world. No to payments.' I couldn't agree more. 

The blades have been lowered and the talk of payments to managers has dried up. I've just spent eight euro on a bottle of Nivea After Sun and Aodh O'Fearraigh's aka @HMFerry's stance on the GAA still stands.

The GAA is indeed 'amateur' and 'unique' but what do these words really mean? I'm going to go off on a bit of a tangent here. Stay with me.