Smyth set to go where no one has gone before

ATHLETICS:Never mind the World Cup, the big story last weekend was Jason Smyth winning the 100 metres in 10.27 seconds in Budapest

BETWEEN golf, rugby, GAA and that diving tournament in South Africa, some of you may have missed the big story in athletics last weekend. It wasn’t just that Ireland comfortably maintained their First League status at the European Team Championships in Budapest – the competition formerly known as the Europa Cup – nor that they did so by winning most points in the sprints. (Remember the days we used to be reliant on our distance runners, hoped our sprinters would even turn up?) The big story was Jason Smyth winning the 100 metres in 10.27 seconds.

Okay, that might not be Usain Bolt territory, but Smyth is now the second fastest Irishman in history. Only Paul Hession, with his Irish record of 10.18, has run quicker.

A slight tailwind ruled Smyth’s time out for record purposes, but he also ran 10.32 earlier this month – also inside the old Irish record of 10.35, which for many years had been jointly held by Gary Ryan and Paul Brizzel.

Oh, and in securing maximum points last weekend, Smyth beat Francis Obikwelu of Portugal, who has run 9.86, and won the silver medal at the Athens Olympics.

Smyth, in case you’ve forgotten, is also partially blind. At the age of eight he was diagnosed with Stargardt’s Disease, a hereditary degenerative visual impairment that affects central vision, although not peripheral vision.

Yet from his schoolboy days in Derry it was clear this was no impairment to his natural sprinting abilities. He’s been asked many times how his limited vision affects his physical performance, and he’s been honest about it – saying he doesn’t know because that’s the only way he’s ever known how to run.

Given his disability, Smyth was naturally steered towards Paralympic competition, and two years ago in Beijing, famously won the 100 and 200 metres in his division – running Paralympic world records of 10.62 and 21.43 in the process.

Smyth had just turned 21, and suddenly it became obvious here was an exceptionally talented sprinter, who also happened to be a Paralympian. Not the other way around.

His performance in Budapest last weekend boldly underlined that. Smyth has crossed the line, and is now set to go where no athlete has gone before.

Next month in Barcelona he’ll become the first Paralympic athlete in history to compete at the European Championships – and if everything goes to plan he’ll also make history in London in two years’ time by becoming the first athlete to compete in the Olympics and Paralympics in the same year.

“I always wanted Jason respected first and foremost as an athlete, not a Paralympic athlete,” his coach, Stephen Maguire, told me this week. “The goal is for Jason to become a world class athlete, who because of his visual impairment also competes in Paralympic competition. That’s great for Jason, and for the Paralympics as well, to show the crossover can exist, even at the highest level.”

None of this has happened by accident. His considerable improvement this season is the result of careful planning and hard work – and when I saw pictures of Smyth competing in Budapest I straightaway recognised a leaner and more powerful looking sprinter, with a lengthened stride and arm action distinctly similar to that of Tyson Gay, the second fastest man on the planet (although some would say the fastest, because Usain Bolt is from another planet).

This makes perfect sense given Smyth has actually spent the last six months training with Tyson Gay. This hasn’t happened by accident either. Maguire has been unfailingly devoted to Smyth over the last six years, and deserves most of the credit for transforming his raw talent into pure speed.

After the Paralympics in Beijing, he realised to take Smyth to the next level would require taking him out of his comfort zone – so why not Clermont, in Florida, where Gay and a dozen or so other world-class sprinters train under American sprint coach Lance Brauman?

“What happened was Jason was getting some of his kit from Adidas,” explains Maguire. “I asked them to put me in touch with some of their top sprint coaches in the US, just so I could bounce some ideas off them. I shared some emails with Lance, and what do you know, we both had similar philosophies. You know yourself. We’d spend hours and hours chatting about all technical stuff, and in the end Lance just told us to come out.

“Jason needs to train in a warm environment anyway, because of an inherent lower back problem. So we were out there for most of the winter, up until the end of May. I suppose there are worst places to spend the winter than Florida. So aye, it’s a nice wee set-up.”

Maguire and Brauman hit it off to the extent that Maguire has taken over as assistant to the group, which along with Gay, includes Jamaica’s Steve Mullings, who has run 19.98 for 200 metres, and Keston Bledman of Trinidad, who recently ran 10.01.

Clermont, a 30-minute drive north of Orlando, has proven the perfect training environment: “Straightaway I discovered their aerobic fitness was so much higher,” admits Maguire. “The intensity of their sessions too. We’d have been absolutely slaughtered at the beginning. But gradually we’ve increased the workload. So this is the first year we’ve really conditioned Jason properly. Tyson, too, has been very good to him, bringing him to one side. And yes he does run a little like him now, arms nice and open, to open the stride. Lance is into real powerful arms. Same with the blocks position, the body angle. Tyson has gone through all that with Jason. So we’re extremely lucky, extremely privileged.

“We’ve been very lucky in terms of funding too. The support from the Sports Council has been unbelievable (Smyth is contracted at €40,000 a year). But his funding is based on his Paralympic progress, and prowess. So we’ll have to see how it evolves. It’s going to be tricky to manage. We have Barcelona at end of July, and Jason will also run the Commonwealth Games in October, in India, for Northern Ireland.

“But perhaps most important for us is the Paralympic World Championships, in January, in New Zealand. They only come around once every four years, and are the biggest event outside the Paralympics. We’re committed to doing well there, to ensure selection for London 2012. So we have to keep it one step at a time. We can’t get too far ahead of ourselves.”

The A-standard for London, by the way, is 10.21. Smyth, who doesn’t turn 23 until next Sunday, has run 10.27, with so much more to come. You do the maths. It’s the meantime, it’s back now to the diving tournament in South Africa.