Silver and bronze: lessons in experience from the Irish medal winners in Munich

It’s late afternoon and the room is hot. Ciara Mageean is back in Manchester three days now, or is it four, she’s really not sure.

“I’ve been a little irrational about the house,” she says.

There are two silver medals resting on her mantlepiece, one from the 1,500 metres at the European Championships in Munich last week, another from the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham two weeks before. And that old post-championship comedown is familiar, good, bad or indifferent you know they can all feel the same.

“This week felt like a bit of a crash. I messaged my siblings this morning and said I don’t know what’s going on, I’m not able to focus on anything. Sometimes it can feel a bit anti-climactic when you come home, getting the kit into the washing machine, out on the clothesline.”

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There was no airport homecoming and no TV chat show because there are still more races to run and promises to keep. Breaking the Irish 1,500m record, belonging to Sonia O’Sullivan since 1995, being one of them.

Mageean’s honesty and openness is as refreshing as ever, all the elation around her success in Munich and Birmingham – both incidentally behind Britain’s Laura Muir – now in the rear-view mirror, journey and destination. Much of the beauty lies in the journey she recounts now first.

“I tore my calf at the Olympics last summer. I’d a rocky build-up over the winter, needed to have a knee injection before the European Cross-Country in December, then I tore my calf again in January, as soon as I opened the indoor season.

“Then I had to get an injection in my ankle, went on a training camp and ended up getting Covid. I suppose I just kept trucking on, not letting any of those occasions dwell too long in my head.

“I know how quick I can come back from injury, have a really strong belief that mental resilience can play a huge role. Ten days without running before the National Championships, because of Covid, is far from ideal. But I trusted the process, I’d say a lot of that comes from maturity.

“I was chatting with some of my team-mates about it, they were like ‘God, weren’t you fantastic you didn’t give up’, people were praising me for that, but it never occurred to me to give up. It wasn’t a battle because I never thought of stopping.”

Nor indeed would the younger Mageean. She’s 30 years old now, and it’s 10 years since the late Jerry Kiernan took over as her coach when she could hardly walk, let alone run. These are the experiences that made her the athlete she is now because, for all the lows, and there have been many, the way she raced in Munich and Birmingham too will ultimately define her career.

Those experiences count in other ways too; our conversation broadens into the other inevitable post-championship comedown, that talk of funding and facilities and coaching, of what comes next for the betterment of Irish athletics especially after the happy glow of Munich

Mageean has been part of the professional New Balance training team in Manchester since leaving Kiernan’s group in Dublin at the end of 2017, months after she trailed home in 13th place in her 1,500m heat at the World Championships in London.

New Balance pay a full-time salary to her current coach Helen Clitheroe, like they did Steve Vernon before her, and she’s certainly grateful for that. Still she knows too Kiernan for one would be steaming at the notion all coaches should be paid, as if that would somehow make them a better coach again.

“I’ve never had to pay any coach that came to me, I didn’t pay Eamonn Christie, I didn’t pay Jerry. Jerry wouldn’t even let me buy him a coffee half the time. Maybe buy him a pair of Nike Pegasus every Christmas, as a gift, because he would never let us put our hands in our pockets.

“That’s a fortunate place to be, and probably unique about our sport in many ways. We compete on a professional stage, I do feel the time should certainly be appreciated, probably provide some sort of income from it. But very few of our coaches are in a position where they are paid. So many do it on a voluntary basis, not just the coaches.”

The notion that more funding will make better athletes doesn’t always ring true either. Earlier this year, Mageean had her Sport Ireland annual grant cut to €25,000, well below the €40,000 podium grant enjoyed by our top rowers and boxers, sailors and gymnasts, and Paralympians too.

“I’ve been on and off funding, my funding was cut last year, I’ve no problem with that. I didn’t meet the goals last year. When Paul McNamara [Athletics Ireland high performance manager] rang me to say my funding was cut, I just said ‘I expected that, I didn’t meet the criteria’. I think he was half surprised when I said that’s no problem, thanks for getting what you could for me.”

She thinks and knows her experiences could count in other ways too. She shared the track on the Tuesday morning in Munich when Sarah Healy trailed home 11th in her 1,500m heat, still only 21, just not close to where she can and wants to be.

“I was chatting briefly to Sarah after Munich, just said it’s not really my place to give you advice, but if you ever want to chat just send me a message. I’ve been where she’s been before, and running within a team can sometimes be therapeutic. Like you open on long runs together, I think that team aspect is very important as well.

“I came from that glistening underage career, where everyone had me dubbed as the next Sonia O’Sullivan, then I got injured, didn’t race at all under-23. That was a huge space without even an Irish vest, so to come out in 2016 and get a medal was hugely special. I’ve had a similar rocky journey towards this one, currently it does feel that bit more special, but they both mean a lot.”

It’s late Wednesday evening when Mark English arrives at the Finn Valley Athletics Club on the road into Ballybofey and they’ve come from all around.

It’s not his home town, Letterkenny is, it is his home club and a sort of Donegal homecoming too. English is in fine spirits and for good reason.

He’s the first and only Irishman to win four European Championship medals in the one event, the 800 metres bronze he won in Munich last Sunday bridging the gap between his similar feat in Zurich eight years ago. He’s a doctor now too.

English also owns two European Indoor 800m medals, silver from Prague in 2015, and bronze from Glasgow in 2019, and with that he joins Sonia O’Sullivan (five), Derval O’Rourke and now Ciara Mageean (two each) in that elite club of multiple Irish medal winners on the European Championship stage.

At age 29 there’s no reason to believe they’ll be his last, though like Mageean his experience in Munich is another reminder of the often retrying of tested methods until they come good again. It hasn’t always been a smooth and straightforward journey.

“A lot of people have actually commented on how I ran the race,” he says, “that meant a lot to a lot of people as well.”

This clearly means a lot to English too, because over those three 800m races in four days in Munich – heats, semi-final and final – he needed to be at his physical and tactical best, the tactical part happening not by accident but careful design, beginning with the careful study of his final opponents.

“I felt the two favourites were Jake Wightman and Mariano Garcia, and I was probably the third favourite, that’s how I felt,” he says, Garcia of Spain ultimately winning gold in 1:44.85, Wightman second in 1:44.91.

“I didn’t want to make the first decision, in terms of getting into position, and then for the others to make their decisions after, coming up to the 400m mark, then I’d be sort of left mid-pack, boxed in.

“So I predicted Garcia would come to the front, like he did in the semi-final, because it worked for him there, it was a competitive semi-final that he won. So I felt if I was able to slot in behind him I’d get a free ride on the rail, the whole way around, then in the last 100m I could give him a shot, but he was just too strong on the day.”

English’s final run last Sunday was described as a tactical masterclass – by me included – only what does that even mean? It means running the race in advance countless times until he repeatedly gets the result he wants.

“There was a lot of planning that actually went into the race,” he says, “I looked at all the splits from the semi-finals and the heats, there were 100m segment splits on the European Athletics website, and I could see the times I was running. In the semi-final I ran 11.6 for the 100m, 200m segments, much quicker than anyone else ran in that race.

“Most other people like Jake Wightman ran 12.1, or 12.2, so I knew if I could just tone back my speed over the first 200m, I’d be able to leave myself something in reserve for that last 200m. Because what you do in the first 100m, of an 800m race, takes from what you can do in that last 100m.

“It’s a cliché I know, but it was about executing the race plan I had in my head as well, and thankfully it worked out as I expected it to.”

Like Mageean, English has endured plenty of setbacks over the years, his Sport Ireland grant down to €18,000 this year, his 800m event always among the most competitive events in global track and field.

A qualified doctor since 2019, English is one year into a two-year medical scheme due for completion by 2025, having worked over that past year in Mayo, Galway and Roscommon hospitals, before taking leave over the summer. The plan was to return in October, although with another World Championships next year, in Budapest, then the Paris Olympics in 2024, there’s no time to lose.

It is just over a year too since English exited the Tokyo Olympics in his first-round heat, finishing fourth in 1:46.75, a few weeks after taking the long-standing Irish record down to 1:44.71.

He never lost heart or hope and nor did his coach Feidhlim Kelly, of the Dublin Track Club, which is not actually a club but a training group rather, and includes fellow Munich runners Andrew Coscoran, Hiko Haso and Michelle Finn.

In the aftermath of English’s final run last Sunday, a photograph emerged of Kelly face down in his hands, sitting inside the old Munich Olympic Stadium, in relief as much as satisfaction.

“That shows how much it means to him,” says English. “It’s brilliant for him and to give something back to the people who’ve brought you up: Feidhlim is one of those, as are my family, my girlfriend, my close friends.

“I didn’t really focus on the negatives too much, I always knew I had the capability to get back there. A few races gave me confidence, the likes of the 500m in Newcastle I ran, in 2016, where I finished just behind David Rudisha. I knew I had that capability in me, and knew if I got the training right I could get back there.

“I was third European at the World Championships in Oregon, and knew if I ran my best race on the day I’d be in with a shout. Even just making it to the final was the difficult part, because there were so many good guys, but I always had the expectation if I made the final, I’d always be able to medal.”

Which he did.