ATHLETICS Wonderful Silver Medal for Olive Loughnane

Olive Loughnane fulfilled her dream at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, by winning sliver in the 20k walk behind gold medalist Olga Kanishine of Russia.

Finishing seventh in last year's Beijing Olympics, Olive has built steadily on that performance. Olive maintained her normal racing plan, staying off the pace in the early stages, increasing the pace as the race progressed and then holding off the strong challenge of China's Hong Lu for the silver medal.

Olive now joins the select band of three other Irish athletes, Eamonn Coghlan, 1983, Sonia O'Sullivan 1993 and 1995, and fellow walker, Gillian O'Sullivan, 2003, to have won a medal at the World Athletics Championships.

Olive received €20k under the 2009 International Carding Scheme and also benefited from the High Performance funding of €685k to Athletics Ireland.