A top triathlon hope tells IAN O'RIORDANabout uniting passions for swimming, running and cycling in one sport

SWIMMING WAS my first competitive sport, although I fell into it by accident. As a youngster my mum took me down to the local club in Cork, Dolphin, to start lessons. Next thing I’m getting up at five in the morning for training. I never planned to get competitive, but it gradually got more serious. I was coached by Eddie Campion and had some success, winning a few Munster championship medals and one Irish schools’ in the relay. Truth is I wasn’t quite the right build for swimming, a little too slight.

At school in Presentation Cork I also played rugby, but from age 12 I knew I couldn’t combine it with swimming. Ronan O’Gara was a few years ahead of me and Peter Stringer, so I have a big interest in rugby and follow it closely.

When I started work as a photographer I came across O’Gara at a photo shoot, and straightaway he remembered me from school and said hello. He’s a really nice guy.

At 16 I was already thinking I’d like to try a triathlon. I knew I needed to work on my running, so I joined Leevale AC. After one week I ran a local cross country down in Midleton, and finished fourth. I’d never run a race before, reckoned I could be good at this.

I still mixed it with the swimming, until one day the coach, Donie Walsh, gave me the ultimatum; I had to choose one or the other. I was running in the evenings and wouldn’t be home until 10 and I’d be up at five for the swimming. With schoolwork as well, it just wasn’t working.

In 1999 I finished second in the Intercounties Junior Cross Country, and so qualified to run the European Cross Country, in Slovenia. I’ll never forget it. I was down to fly out from Cork on the Thursday, but thought it was the Friday. I called up Athletics Ireland. And at first they said it was too late, I couldn’t run. I was crying, and eventually they got me on a flight out of Dublin. I think that made me more determined to run well, and we ended up winning the bronze medals, the team of Gary Murray, Mark Smyth and I.

So running was my main sport for a few years after that, but I began to find it a little insular, anti-social. I’d started at the NCAD in Dublin, was training a lot on my own. I wasn’t enjoying it. There weren’t much racing prospects.

Cycling was another sport I loved, I always had a good bike and just started getting more into it. I’d failed the Leaving Cert first time round because that May, when I should have been studying, I was studying Marco Pantani in the Giro. At 21, I started training on the bike a lot more. I figured having competed at a decent level in running, how hard can it be? I found out soon enough how hard it could be. It took me a year or two just to develop the leg strength, the power, for the racing.

One December I was training around Howth and bumped into some cyclists from Dublin Wheelers. They asked me to try out with the club. After a year and a half I got my A-licence and started training with the Irish Cycling federation team in Belgium, the year before it became the Seán Kelly team. You could live for €50 a week and just train and race. I finished my degree and I based myself there for a season.

I got to compete in the Rás twice, first in 2005, on the Irish team. I rode a few other stage races, such at the Tour of Serbia. I never raced too well. I found, say, the eight-day races a bit too tough. I was better off on the one-day races and finished sixth in the national road race.

By the start of 2008 I was working full-time in photography. It was a sort of crossroads, but I decided I’d take off to Australia that March and see what happens. I worked for a few newspapers in Melbourne, then Sydney. I also got back doing some cycling. Then I tried a few duathlons, and when the triathlon season started up in September I figured I’d give that a go too, and got back swimming.

I got the chance to train down in Wollongong with a top coach, Jamie Turner. He was very helpful, put a professional approach to my training, and last March I got to compete in the Oceanic Championships, on the Gold Coast, and finished sixth. That was a real breakthrough.

That convinced me to come back to Ireland this summer for the triathlon season here. I’m 28 now, still new to the sport, and playing a lot of catch-up, just adapting to the training, three times a day. I’ve only being doing that since March, but I’m coached by Chris Jones, who works with Triathlon Ireland on a consultancy basis. He’s already done so much for the development of the sport here. He’s hugely knowledgeable.

I’m part of the Irish development squad now and have been based in Wales for the build-up to the Europeans. This feels like my career now, my job, but it’s also a fantastic thing to do, to train and to travel. Of course if it keeps going the way it is the London Olympics would be the aim. Ireland can get more triathletes in the Olympics, and for me, that’s the big goal.

Bryan Keane competes at Sunday’s European Championships in Holten, The Netherlands.