Chasing Olympic Dreams

So it’s been 18 weeks and I’ve not had a blog post. I give out to people for not keeping their blogs updated and here I am guilty of the crime myself. Well in fairness I’ve had a decent excuse.

These past months have been spent pursuing a dream to qualify for the Olympics. To quote Brad Pitt in the Devil’s Own.

“Don’t look for a happy ending. It’s not an American story. It’s an Irish one”

You could say it began when I was 8 years old but for the sake of currency it started in August 2007, when my good friend Gordon Kennedy and I sat down and discussed what was our best chance of getting to the Olympics in Beijing. As 400m runners the choice was obvious - the 4*400m relay. On a global level, Ireland has greater depth in the 400m sprint than probably any other sporting discipline, but the public are not aware of this at all. We wanted to inform the Irish audience about this and get our team to the Olympics.

So we got all the 400m runners on the same page, including our superstars, David Gillick and Paul McKee and branded our efforts as Project 400. We needed an event to get all the guys in the one spot, so with the help of the Sunday Independent we organised a photoshoot in Dublin with their photographer David Conachy, while sportswriter John O’Brien documented our efforts in a 2 page spread before Christmas.

Athletics does not pay the bills unless you are a megastar so if you want to pursue the dream you need a source of funding. For me it was my business so I structured my working day according to my training, and tried to get the balance just right. Throughout the summer I managed to keep on top of both work and training, but the Blog was the obvious casualty.

Having signed off on a bunch of work in late March, I fled to the warmer climes of Portugal where I put in a month’s training with the other 400m guys. Portugal was fantastic. Nice weather, great facilities and top class athletes to train with. All of us really progressed in Portugal and we were in great spirits for the forthcoming summer season.

Having put my body throught the wringer for 8 months I was in the shape of my life in early April. However as the season edged closer little niggles turned to injury in what would become a summer long battle with my own body. Strained tendons, Torn Muscles, Dislocated knees. I didn’t wnat to wallow in self pity, there was a ticket to Beijing available and nothing could distract me from the goal of getting the team to qualify. A qualified team would mean more time to prove I was in shape so I never felt the panic of an athlete forcing to get themself in shape.

Qualification for the Olympics involved ranking in the top 16 in the World for the years 2007-2008 based on the aggregate of your 2 best times. Having no time down on paper for 2007, meant that we had to do it all this year and that was going to be tough. Our first qualification race was in Namur Belgium. I didn’t get to even see myself as a hamstring tear meant I was spending most of my free time with needles in my leg. We finished 3rd in Namur in a time of 3:04.71, beaten by an inch by a South African team that would ultimately make the Olympics.

A week later we had to put in our second time. My leg had healed sufficiently to travel to Estonia with the team as the sub. Being the 5th man is not a pleasant role but it is necessary and at least I’d be able to roar encouragement from the stands. The odds were stacked against us in Estonia. The weather was poor, there was no competition and there wasn’t a big crowd. However the Irish supporters made themselves heard and the team produced an incredible performance given the circumstances - 3.04.43. We checked the Top 16 lists. We were in 17th missing out by 1/100th of a second.

We couldn’t miss the Olympics by so little.

We checked the IAAF list of races. There was one opportunity left in Salamanca in Spain in 2 weeks time. In between the 2 relay races David Gillick set a new Irish record and leading time in Europe this year. Everything was falling in to place. People were getting faster, we’d get to run in a warmer climate in a bigger race knowing that a good run would mean we’d be going to the Olympics. I had just shaken off my injuries so I was looking for a run out myself. And then it happened.

2 days before the race - we get a phone call. The race is cancelled. Not the entire event, just the 4*400m. I’d like to go into the details about what happened but suffice to say it was more than just a lack of beds that lead to the cancelling of our final Olympic qualification attempt. This article does a good job of explaining the situation.

We ended the season 15th in the World for the year but 18th on the aggregate list, 2/10ths of a second off of our dream. Less than the time it takes to clap your hands over a course of a mile in length. The hardest part of it all is not losing on your own terms and being denied the chance to prove yourself. We’ll always know we were good enough to go, but its scant consolation when the party is 5,000 miles away and you are at home.

So the Beijing Olympics will be spent cheering on our friends on the Irish team, in particular David Gillick who qualified individually. I’d rather be in the Crow’s nest than on the couch. I’m looking for the silver lining, but I think this story is more of a smog haze than cloud.

No Regrets.

Posted 08.08.08

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