When Derval O'Rourke sat down in tears at the end of a two-week training camp in Portugal in January 2006, frustrated beyond words at the paltry return she was getting for the work she was putting into changing her hurdling technique, she was setting herself on fire. Ditto David Gillick when he turned to Armagh footballer Enda McNulty for help in sorting his head out after the smothering expectation that followed his gold medal in the European indoors in 2005.

Same too for Paul Hession when he closed his eyes and took the jump last year, deferring his medical studies in NUIG and instead seeking out the Scottish coach Stuart Hogg to see what he could see in him. Self-immolators all, all in the pursuit of success.

What constitutes success, however, is an altogether more elusive notion. This is Irish athletics after all where only once or twice a generation does there come along a talent capable of medalling at a World Championships or Olympic Games. In Osaka this week, O'Rourke, Gillick and Hession . . . along with probably Alistair Cragg and possibly hammer thrower Eileen O'Keeffe . . . represent the best chances the Irish team of 15 have of making finals. And O'Rourke is really the only one in with the slightest squeak of a medal.

That likely won't cut it as success in the wider imagination. The sporting public will, for the most part, shrug its shoulders and go about its week, the awkward time difference and slim chance of glory leaving the championships a matter of curiosity and little more. And in just under a year, these same athletes will head off to Beijing where their various spontaneous combustions will be dismissed by the Liveline experts back home as anything other than successes.

But make no mistake . . . if Hession, a pale 24-year-old from Athenry who only took up sprinting in his late teens because he was sick of being left out the back of middle distance fields, makes the 200m final on Thursday, it will rank up there as one of the feats of the Irish sporting year. There's a good chance it could happen too. His rise this season has been exceptional. When he won the national title in Santry during the summer, he ran 20.30 . . .

the 16th fastest time in the world going into Osaka. Given that five of the men that have run faster than him are Americans who aren't competing in Japan, he's in the mix at the very least.

The same goes for Gillick and even O'Rourke. The Cork hurdler has her sights set on a medal and will likely be disappointed if she only makes the final but that in itself would be a serious achievement. There's something very likeable about the doughty way she goes about things.

She doesn't do the Grand Prix circuit very much because under the lights of Zurich and Rome and the rest, it's all about agents squabbling over lane draws and sponsors' logos and the kind of annoyances she couldn't be arsed with worrying about. So she turns up at championships where your lane is decided by how well you run in your heat and she feels more comfortable and performs better. You could only wish the best for someone like that, but if she makes Wednesday's final and only comes eighth she'll be dismissed as an alsoran back home. Such are the pitfalls of being a talent in a sport your countryfolk only tune into to once in a very blue moon.

Outside of the Irish, though, there is plenty to set aside your lunchbreaks and even your wee hours for this week. At shortly after two o'clock this afternoon Irish time, the 100m final will go off, an eyeballs-out head-to-head between world record holder Asafa Powell and Tyson Gay, the fastest man in the world this year. Shortly before it, the phenomenal Carolina Kluft comes to the end of the defence of her heptathlon title. And tomorrow, the great Keninisa Bekele will trot to what must surely be his third 10,000m title in a row.

But for the sentimentalists among us, the one performance to look forward to takes place late on Friday night, which translates to pretty early on Saturday morning over here. For that is when Jamie Costin from Waterford will take to the start line in the 50km walk just over three years after coming within millimetres of having his spinal cord severed in a car accident in Athens. When they took him to hospital over there, doctors wanted to insert titanium rods either side of his spinal cord to protect it but despite the pain he was in . . .

he'd broken two vertebrae and had countless other fractures in his back . . . he wouldn't allow them to do so because he knew it would definitely spell the end of his race-walking career.

He won't win a medal this week, a place in the top 20 is a more realistic ambition, but for the simple success of making it to the start line, he's worth our attention and our applause.

It's the least we can do after he set himself on fire to get there.

IRISH IN OSAKA . . . WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP SCHEDULE TODAY 00.00

Robert Heffernan in men's 20k raceralking final 02.50 Joanne Cuddihy in women's 400m first round TOMORROW 02.10 Derval O'Rourke in women's 100m first round 02.40 Michelle Carey in women's 400m first round 13.10 Joanne Cuddihy in 400m semi-final* TUESDAY 02.00 & 3.25 Eileen O'Keeffe in women's 12.20 Roisin McGettigan and Fionnualla Britton in 3000m steeplechase final hammer qualification A and B 02.00 David Gillick in men's 400m first round 03.00 & 12.10 Paul Hession in men's 200m first and second rounds 11.35 Derval O'Rourke in women's 100m hurdles semi-final* 13.40 Michelle Carey in women's 400m semifinal* WEDNESDAY 12.00 Mary Cullen in women's 5,000m first round 13.05 Derval O'Rourke in women's 100m hurdles final* 13.25 David Gillick in men's 400m semi-"nal* 13.50 Joanne Cuddihy in women's 400m final* 14.20 Paul Hession in men's 200m semi-final* THURSDAY 11.30 Eileen O'Keeffe in women's hammer final* 11.40 David Campbell in men's 800m first round 12.45 Alistair Cragg in men's 5,000m first round 14.20 Paul Hession in men's 200m final* FRIDAY 00.00 Olive Loughnane in women's 20k 12.05 David Campbell in men's 800m semi-"nal 14.05 David Gillick in men's 400m final* 23.25 Jamie Costin and Colin Griffin and men's 50k walk SUNDAY 11.30 Alistair Cragg in men's 5,000 final* 11.55 David Campbell in men's 800m final *Depending on qualification from previous round