And while it hadn't taken a lick out of him, it had left Gillick looking like battlefield debris.

They'd run the semi-final only two lanes apart, Gillick in lane nine and Wariner in seven. If you managed to position yourself close enough down by trackside, you were rewarded with as eye-opening a contrast in styles down the home straight as you could wish for. Over the final 50, Wariner covered the ground like water pouring down a staircase. There appeared to be no effort, no friction even with the Nagai Stadium's red track underfoot. In his wake Gillick was flat to the boards, looking for all the world like a rugby centre straining for the line. When he got there, he was just 0.15 outside the Irish record of 45.23 he'd set in Geneva 10 weeks ago. Wariner was running faster times than that when he was 19.

They used to say that if you were to sit down and design an Olympic champion swimmer from scratch, you would come up with Ian Thorpe; the same goes for Wariner and 400m running. He actually only stands an inch shorter than Gillick but according to the official IAAF statistics he carries in the region of a stone and a half less body mass around with him. He is a freak, plain and simple, custom-built to supplant Michael Johnson at the pinnacle of one-lap running, if not by the end of this summer then in time for Beijing next August.

Comparing and contrasting Gillick and Wariner isn't remotely fair on the Dubliner and the intention here certainly isn't to belittle him. Rather, it's to paint some sort of picture of what he and some of his Irish teammates find themselves up against. Gillick ran the second and third fastest times of his life in his two races out here. He will one day break the 45-second barrier and when he does it will be a momentous day for Irish sprinting, a feat unheard of in the history of athletics in the country. But the reality is that even if he'd shaved a full quarter of a second off his record on Wednesday night, he still wouldn't have made the final. The Australian John Steffensen ran 44.95 in the following semi-final and had to say goodnight.

The same went for Joanne Cuddihy and Paul Hession. Cuddihy was the only Irish athlete to run a personal best out here, and yet in breaking the Irish 400m record and going under the 51-second barrier for the first time, she was still almost half a second outside the final.

Hession's sixth place in his 200m semifinal looked for a spell like it might work itself out into fourth and a place in the final but the field left him for dead over the final 40. Different leagues. Different sports almost.

With 11 months to go to the Olympics, all three deserve whatever praise and support is going when they arrive home.

As does Eileen O'Keeffe who managed a World Championships sixth place without the aid of a proper technical coach and who . . . heaven preserve us . . .

is down to be back at work nursing in Beaumont hospital in a fortnight. As does Robbie Heffernan, the pencil-thin walker from Cork who somehow willed himself to sixth in the 20k event despite the temperature in the stadium at the end reaching 35 degrees, the highest ever finishing temperature for any event in the history of the championships (oh, and with 51 per cent humidity thrown in as well).

What none of them deserves is to be greeted with a chorus of show-us-yermedals. The notion that there will be even one piece of gold, silver or bronze coming back from track or field next August is pure pie in the sky at this remove. True, Derval O'Rourke will set her mind to avoiding a repeat of her ashen performance here and undoubtedly has it in her to make an Olympic final, but beyond that you're into the realms of you-just-never-know if you're looking for comfort. For all that Irish athletics has had a good week, we're still talking light years behind world standards in what is, vexingly, a properly global sport.

Out of the 15 Irish athletes that went to Osaka, nine finished in the top 17 in their event. The top 17 in the world. For a sport that is basically an afterthought to the general public, kept going by a small coterie of believers and blue-in-theface proselytisers, that's something to start with at least. Athletics people know they'll be ignored now until the Olympics come around whereupon they'll be torched and interrogated as to why there are no Coghlans or Treacys or Sonias any more.

They deserve better than that. They deserve for people to recognise and accept that there's no amount of funding, restructuring, coaching or praying that will make David Gillick a better 400m runner than Jeremy Wariner. Not in time for Beijing. Not ever.

IRELAND'S RUNNING ORDER

MEN Robert Heffernan (20k walk) . . . sixth overall Paul Hession (200m) . . . sixth in his semi-final David Gillick (400m) . . . sixth in his semi-final David Campbell (800m) . . . seventh in his heat Alistair Cragg (5,000m) . . . 11th in his heat Jamie Costin (50k walk) . . . didn'tfi"nish Colin Griffin (50k walk) . . . disqualified for lifting

WOMEN Eileen O'Keeffe (hammer) . . . sixth overall Joanne Cuddihy (400m) . . . fourth in her semi-final; broke Irish record Roisin McGettigan (3,000m steeplechase) . . . 10th overall Fionnula Britton (3,000m steeplechase) . . . 12th overall Derval O'Rourke (100m hurdles) . . . last in her semi-final Michelle Carey (400m) . . . last in her heat Mary Cullen (5,000m) . . . 11th in her heat Olive Loughnane (20k walk) . . . 17th overall