SPORT: Jason Smyth is partially sighted and he represents Ireland with distinction on the international athletics circuit
OU WERE PROBABLY asleep when Jason Smyth made history this morning, but that was more his fault than it was yours, so don’t feel bad. Just about 5am Irish time, he took his marks in the Daegu Stadium in South Korea, 150 miles south east of Seoul, for the opening heats of the 100-metres in the World Athletics Championships (assuming nothing went awry after this article went to press). By doing so, the 24-year-old sprinter from Derry became the first male paralympic athlete to compete in the championships.
Smyth grew up with Stargardt disease, a genetic disorder that has left him with around 10 per cent of normal vision. He can make out blurs and colours directly ahead of him, but little more. He can also sprint like very few Irishmen have ever been able to. He is the national senior champion at 100m and his personal best of 10.22 seconds is just 0.04 seconds outside Paul Hession’s national record.
Exactly a year from next weekend – all going well, injury and the fates permitting – he will become the first athlete from anywhere in the world to compete in both the Olympics and Paralympics in the same year. In paralympic terms, he’s Usain Bolt, having won both the 100m and 200m in his category in Beijing three years ago. At the able-bodied games and these world championships, he has to settle for being the most interesting also-ran in the field.
“There’s been loads of attention here,” he says from his hotel in Daegu. “The story is something loads of people have caught on to. I think they find it hard to get their head around the fact that I’ve run quicker than their national record even though I can’t see too well.”
Smyth had been training in the US alongside Tyson Gay for the past year. Gay is the second-fastest man in history over 100m, and would have expected to be Bolt’s closest challenger in Daegu before injury ruled him out. A fortnight ago, he went so far as to say that Smyth had a better sprinting technique than him. It was confirmation of Smyth’s growing reputation in the able-bodied world. That said, he hangs tightly to his roots.
“Paralympics for me will always be more important. I’m funded as a paralympic athlete and that’s where I started and where I came from. But I don’t like to get too caught up in which of them is more important because for me, it’s just all about reaching my potential and being the best I can be.
“I’m representing myself. I like people to appreciate paralympic athletes doing things like this and it’s good that people can see what paralympic athletes are capable of. Hopefully too, other paralympic athletes see it happening and feel they can do it themselves. But really, I have to be selfish about it at the end of the day. I’m doing this for me and the people around me who’ve done so much for me.”
