By now, you've probably seen the extraordinarily dramatic climax to the weekend's University 4x400m relay race at Morton Stadium. The race saw the lead change numerous times on the final straight, before UCC's Phil Healy came from fifth position to steal an improbable victory. Relive the whole thing here, with the real drama beginning at the three-minute mark.
The commentator who coined the fantastic 'UCC from the depths of hell' line is Cathal Dennehy, and we spoke to him on The Racket podcast today. Listen to the full interview below:
Dennehy revealed the incredible amount of ground Healy had to make up:
It was about 70 metres, which, in a 400 metre race, is a ridiculous deficit to claw back. She was so far behind that as the camera shows the first bend on that last lap, you can't see her as the camera had already panned to the back straight where the leading UCD athlete had got to by the time Phil Healy went around that first bend.
They didn't get an official clocking on Phil Healy but we think it's in or around the 52 or 53 second range, from what her coach was saying. She is not even a 400 metre runner, and this was after she had run at 100 metres and 200 metres over the weekend, so it was an outstanding run from the Cork athlete.
Fatigue may have affected Michelle Finn, the UCD athlete who had entered what was her first 400 metre race the final straight in the lead, as she had broken the Intervarsity record in the steeplechase earlier that day.
Dennehy describes Healy as one our best sprinters, and she has competed at European level, and will be at Olympic level if she can improve by a tenth of a second over a hundred metres, and given the fact that she ran so well at the weekend, we may yet see her in an Irish singlet in Rio this summer.
It was a sporting event made all the more memorable by Dennehy's line of commentary, so did he have the 'UCC from the depths of hell' pre-prepared?
No, we didn't have that written out! Sometimes these things come to you - not that I have too much experience doing these things - buit sometimes you get that flash of inspiration. I don't know if it was the red singlet coming from so far behind, but something flashed up to say 'coming from the depths of hell'.
It was just a spur of the moment thing, and thankfully it paid off. And thankfully my co-commentator - who got it wrong when he said the final straight was a fight for third - but I was pretty much losing my voice and my mind, so he stepped in and saved the day thankfully!
You can follow Cathal on twitter here.
