We need to find a way all can run together

ATHLETICS:HISTORY REPEATS itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. Karl Marx said that. There's a history to the chief executive position within Athletics Ireland (AI) that has repeated itself a couple of times already – and that's probably all I should say about the latest chapter of it. There were so many accusations made in the High Court this week that I have to be careful about what I say here for fear of ending up there myself. "Stay away from it," the Sports Editor warned me, and for once I had to agree. Some things happen for no good reason. Some things you just can't touch without getting burnt. Some questions are better left unanswered.

What will be the lasting damage done by the costly settlement this week with former chief executive Mary Coghlan? Will we ever know?

In any case, Irish athletics has plenty of other important questions to ask right now, beginning with events over in Doha. Can David Gillick pull off a World Indoor gold medal this afternoon? Let’s hope so, and he’s certainly looking the part, because most of the 13 other Irish athletes out there – twice the number Kenya sent – appear to be finding things a little too hot to handle. They might have blamed it on the desert climate, but of course it’s indoors.

Was it really wise to send so many athletes? For the past few years, AI has adopted a policy of sending every Irish athlete who attains a qualifying standard for a major championship. Funnily enough, they actually questioned this policy themselves after the World Championships in Berlin last August – particularly the practice of sending athletes on b-standards. The question now is can they really afford to do this anymore, given the you-know-what?

But if, for argument’s sake, I had a role in AI (say that €110,000 annual salary, plus €20,000 bonus), I’d be first of all asking why more people are likely to run the Mark Kelly Mile this afternoon than ran in the two junior races at last Sunday’s National Cross Country.

The Mark Kelly Mile, by unashamed admission, is a product of Facebook, a modest idea put together by friends. It has quickly snowballed into a not entirely insignificant event, and perhaps a timely statement about the sport itself: “Let’s all run together.”

“Mark Kelly grew up in the leafy suburbs of Dublin. As a child, boy and man, he ran free in these suburbs without a care in the world. It was only when he moved to the hustle and bustle of the city that his freedom was threatened. This didn’t stop Mark, and to this day he endeavours to keep running. Even if it means running down South William Street on a busy Dublin shopping day. We now call on you to join his cause and take Dublin City back. Take it back from the yummy mummies’ jeeps, the bag-heavy D4 wannabes and the common or garden suit. Let’s all run together.”

The Mark Kelly Mile starts at 1.30pm, beside Peter’s Pub, at the end of the South William Street. Runners will be travelling by the busload from across the country to be there. There is no entry fee, no time limit and no prizes. The race weaves its way down to Dame Street, through Temple Bar, across the Ha’penny Bridge and finishes where Mary Street meets Jervis Street, at the Church Pub. It’s not the winning or losing that matters, but the taking part. It’s not a race, it’s a run.

In many ways the Mark Kelly Mile articulates a lot of the issues in Irish athletics right now. More people than ever, evidently, want to run, want to take some part in the sport for the sheer pleasure of it. They just want a goal, a distance and perhaps a finisher’s T-shirt – and couldn’t care less why some people in AI still can’t seem to get along. There is enormous potential in athlete numbers out there, still not being tapped into.

Why can’t we all run together? Last Sunday, at the National Cross Country championships in the Phoenix Park, supposedly one of the headline events on the Irish athletics calendar, a record few 22 runners started the junior women’s race. Of these, only two were from outside Leinster, and among the teams not one came from outside Leinster. Not a single club from Munster, Connacht or Ulster? Even the Mark Kelly Mile can do better than that.

As if that weren’t a tough enough question for AI, the original winner of the junior women, the extraordinarily talented Siofra Cleirigh-Buttner, was disqualified for being underage – which meant, strictly speaking, there were only 21 finishers. But rules are rules. No matter how good Cleirigh-Buttner is, at 14 she’s not yet good enough to be competing in a race for under-19s.

In the junior men, there were only 34 runners (which seems like one-tenth of what used to run back in my day) – and again, incredibly, only four clubs entered teams: three from Dublin, one from North Down. Not a single club from Cork, Limerick or Galway?

AI, for the past three years, has employed seven regional development officers, and an important part of their mandate is club development. Perhaps they should come along to the Mark Kelly Mile to find a few recruits – or any of the road races that appear to be taking precedence for many so-called elite athletes (here I mention the KBC 5k, starting at noon tomorrow at Dublin’s Mansion House).

And yet, also taking place this afternoon, in Cork, are the Irish Schools Cross Country championships, which – yet again – defy all the commercial, political and selfish aspects of the sport and concentrate solely on fostering talent. Around 900 runners, from all 32 counties, will compete, and every one will have run hard just to be there – coming through the 14 regional competitions, which attracted over 10,000 aspiring runners.

Without schools athletics, would Irish athletics have a future at all? Clearly the athletics club, as we used to know it, appears to be dying. Schools athletics, as we’ve always known it, is thriving. So are road races. Has the balance been lost somewhere?

It’s no coincidence the Mark Kelly Mile has sprung from this ever-widening lure of running, and perhaps now that Athletics Ireland has finished up in the High Court, it can honestly start addressing this question. Why can’t we all run together?