London calling for Trinners’ Queen of Tara
The Trinity Ball is an annual end-of-term, pre-exams blow-out for those who fill the name-scrawled wooden benches in the old lecture theatres of Dublin 2. The tickets are procured in advance, parties are planned on Facebook and in canteens over hot coffee. The dress code remains as it always has been: black tie. Some of the cooler students twin the tux with pair of worn Converse trainers I’m told however.
The music is invariably good – I’ve never been, but have heard some of the best bands’ sounds waft over the walls in the past. Tonight, one of my personal favourites from my college days, The Streets will headline. If that name means little to you, rest assured, it’s a big deal to have Mike Skinner visit your school. Though, unlike the Lord Mayor, he can’t grant a half day.
Despite the calibre of the acts, tonight is circled in red ink on every Trinity student’s social calendar. So what will Natalya Coyle, a pupil of Business, Economics and Social Studies be doing when BellX1 and Jessie J take the stage?
“I’ll probably be training until seven or eight at the NAC (National Aquatic Centre) in Blanchardstown and then I’ll go home straight afterwards,” she told me.
“I do live in student accommodation but I have an early start in the morning for a fencing national. I’ll have to give the ball a miss because next week I’m going to Sardinia for a world cup. So I better be on my best behaviour.”
Coyle, at just 20, is one of our brightest young athletes. But in about five different sports.
The Meath native hopes to represent Ireland next year in London in the modern pentathlon. While her cohorts practice the student equivalent – cramming, dossing, texting, sleeping, chugging – Coyle has taken it upon herself to reach the heights of international standard in pistol shooting, fencing, swimming, horse riding and running.
Sure why not?
When I ring her initially, the mobile buzzes silently during her final lecture of the day. When she returns the call little over an hour later she’s already crossed the capital at rush hour and I can hear the lapping of the swimming pool in the background. Later she’ll slip into the water and continue her relentless stroke-by-stroke journey towards Stratford.
“I probably do about 25 hours a week of training and I think I have about 14-16 hours of college a week. So I kind of have to balance it all out. Our coach tailors our schedules to us so it works around our timetables in college so we can get all the training in.
“On a normal day I have three sessions. On a Tuesday I start at seven with my first training – a gym – and run from nine for an hour. I go straight into shooting then from 10 ‘til 11. I don’t end ‘til nine which is swimming. And I’d have five trainings throughout the day.
“Obviously there’s a college day in there as well,” she concluded.
Obviously. I’m afraid to ask where she squeezes in the three-hour tea breaks and the wheelie-bin races but I don’t have the heart.
“It is mad,” she agreed, laughing, as if realising it for the first time when she’s asked to recount it all aloud.
“I don’t think I’d do it if I didn’t enjoy it,” she continued, “luckily I have friends on the team too. I don’t think I’d be able to do it without them as they’re a great support system.”
So what the hell is it? Do people know what it is when you tell them at parties? And is it for everyone?
“Anyone can actually get into this sport,” Colye insisted brightly.
“You don’t need to have your own horse which everyone thinks you do. And you can come from any sporting background.
“Some of my friends that picked it up were in the Trinity fencing club and some swimmers start off or runners – and I came from an equestrian background.
“My weakest would be the fencing because that’s my newest one. I’ve been part of the fencing club since I started in Trinity and it’s really come on from there but you need time to mature because it’s such a technical sport.”
The Tara Athletic Club starlet is too modest to reveal, until prompted, that she’s one of the best fencers in the country now and a member of the team which dominates those who’ve been behind marks for a lot longer.
So, I know a guy can get a ticket for tonight. The Streets are breaking up – this is their last tour — the forecast is good, everyone’s going. Any interest at all?
“It doesn’t really matter, all the things I miss, like going out a lot. It won’t really matter if I qualify for the Olympics. That’s all I’m focused on,” Coyle said without a cloud of doubt.
As The Streets’ Mike Skinner will utter tonight in front of thousands of Natalya Coyle’s classmates: Let’s Push Things Forward.
- Contact: Adrian@thescore.ie Twitter: @adrianrussell
