I competed against Efrem Gidey in the Raheny 5 in January. I got my race tactics wrong that day, I let him build up a lead and couldn’t reel him in.
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Go on so sure tell us
Both arrived into Ireland as refugees, one from Ethiopia, one from Eritrea. I’ll let some hack take the rest of it from here
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You’d have beaten him if it wasn’t for the inaccurate course measurements I’m sure
Current Pole vault champion and world record holder, Duplantis, is just short of six foot so you could have been a contender!
Fionnuala McCormack could go well in marathon tomorrow hopefully.
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Always thought being nearly elite at individual sport as a child would be a curse. Being dragged up to Dublin every weekend for pole vault training, tennis squads,gymnastics or some such. Swimming at 5am daily for your teenage life…
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Top class athletics is just nuts. There’s literally no margin for error in technique as every slight flaw costs either time or distance.
I remember running in some National Junior Championships back in the very late 90s and in the warm up area being beside Emily Maher from Kilkenny. I think she had won a European 200m Gold Medal that year or the year before hand so was like a goddess for most of us. She chatted away to everyone and came across very level headed.
Anyway, she goes out to run the 200m and is about 10m clear of the next lass with 50m gone and streaks home by 20m or so I think. But the whole way around her Dad and her coach are roaring at her about her head position. Apparently whatever head carriage (to borrow a horsey term) she had was awful and meant the rest of her body was twisted to compensate for it. Imagine seeing someone absolutely destroy a national field in any sport and a coach absolutely roaring at you about your poor technique. What a fuckin crazy sport.
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Ya you seem to only be allowed swim train early in the morning for some reason. Must be some hardship for the parents as well. You’d probably need one of those pushy cunts of parents
Sprinting is basically impossible to be elite at, think about the amount of people in the World. Within reason pretty much everyone can be a sprinter and figure out if they are fast of not. You cannot train yourself to be good at it, only to get better. And 8, fucking 8 make the finals. Even if you go to top 50 or whatever, thats an insane level of talent.
There are more than 50 players at two premier league clubs and they would be considered elite
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John Kenny and Andrew Bree are a fine combination on swimming coverage
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I taught a young fella this year and he pissed the local schools competition. 80m sprint. Ran the final in 8.45 seconds. Awful technique though but has real potential to be successful. I tried to get him to join an athletics club but the nearest to him is two buses away and his parents wouldn’t be that way inclined. Hopefully he keeps it up in secondary school as they’ve a track beside it. but he wants to be a footballer. He’s not in an academy so that ship has already sailed.
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Hon Sharlene, the Rose of Keeper Hill*
*An actual competition that used to be run. Don’t think it was still around by the time she was of age.
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What was your discipline?
Hurdles and Triple Jump. I was fortunate that fuck all else lads went in both so if you beat 1 or 2 lads you usually had a medal!
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By God. Did you ever the steeplechase a go? Seems to be a crossover between lads who were good at that transitioning over to trail running.
Because you have to go to school during the day?
Never. Only took up longer distance running in my late 20s. Was only ever a sprinter / lazy cunt when I did athletics. Did a 400m hurdles race a few times and it was beyond torture
Could they not go in the evenings
Emily Maher. I spent an afternoon with her back in the mid 2000s. A lovely lady, sound as a pound.
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They can and do. But you need a huge amount of time in the pool to be a top swimmer and most pools would be busy in the evening. It’s common sense really.