olive loughnane is on the move literally as she prepares for the 2008 olympic games being held in beijing. indeed entering her third olympics the loughrea ac athlete can look foward in confidence given her preparations and recent excellent form.
olive posted a personal best on may 11 when competing in the worldrace walking cup in cheboksary, Russia . The clock read 1:29:17 at the 20km mark which represented a lifetime best, this was olive's first sub 1:30 performance. Her splits were 5k - 22:21 , 10K- 44:38. olive competed on the same course in 2003 and posted 1:30:29, she took a whopping 1 minute and 12 seconds off that time, well done olive. last weekend olive again finished in sixth place at the spanish grand prix at la coruna posting a time of 1:30:20 . The event is about both technique and fitness and racewalkers are constantly monitored by officals along the course, olive picked up a few yellow cards and did well to survive.
olive has recently been to portugal's algarve coast where ireland's beijing bound athletes trained for two weeks. Altitude training is next on olive's programme as the font romeu in the pyrenees awaits.