Missing London Olympics was a blessing, says maturer Fiona Doyle

Fiona Doyle probably wouldn’t have taken kindly to the suggestion at the time but the Limerick swimmer knows now that failure to make the Olympics four years ago may be one of the best things to have happened to her.

It seems intuitively odd, a discordant note to sound for a woman who first voiced her ambition to make the Games as a 12-year-old and one who will finally achieve her ambition in Rio de Janeiro this weekend, having missed out on London by 0.48 of a second.

“As nice as it would have been to qualify for 2012, I am fortunate to maybe not have gone and having had the opportunity to get over that hardship and try and improve myself as a person,” she explains.

“I’ll be a lot more prepared going to Rio.

“I am excited for it but I am old enough and I’ve been around long enough to know that it is just a competition. I’m trying to keep it at that.

“I’m treating it almost like another World Championships. It is a celebration but I am reeling myself in enough so that I am not too stressed out about it.”

The 2012 Doyle wouldn’t have said that. She may even have been horrified by it.

Her twin sister Eimear has described her determination as “unparalleled” and for a long time that was combined with a flinty personality that clearly didn’t always make her the easiest of athletes to work with in the pool.

It was her displeasure at what she deemed to be a less-than-satisfactory coaching setup that first prompted a move from Limerick to Dublin, and she admits that her subsequent decision to take up a scholarship in Calgary was in large part to outrun her own issues.

“I was very hot-headed when I was younger,” she told the Irish Examiner a year ago.

“Very much straight through the front door if there was an issue.

“I was definitely one that would highlight or make something known to somebody if I had a problem.”

Mike Blondal soon realised as much. Swim coach at the University of Calgary, Blondal has become integral to Doyle’s career and has made the trip from Canada to Uberlandia in Brazil to supervise his charge at Team Ireland’s training camp but relations haven’t always been so smooth.

“After the London failure, Fiona had to decide if she wanted to be a swimmer or a world-class swimmer,” Blondal told RTÉ’s ‘Road to Rio’ documentary.

“She was as prickly as they come when she first showed up here and now she is really easy to work with.

“For her to be successful, that emotional rollercoaster that she could be on, the edges have to be off it and she has to stay as hungry as she can be without taking it personally.

“She’s now living the lifestyle to get her to an Olympic final.”

Peter Banks, Swim Ireland’s high performance director, will tell you the same thing. The new Doyle focuses on herself instead of others.

The Doyle that doled out blame for her London failure is long gone and Banks credits Blondal with much of that.

“She respects him really highly,” says Banks. “That partnership has worked very well for them both.” Other changes should help too.

A degree in kinesiology and pedagogy was completed last December, opening her eyes to just how much recovery she was missing out on over the years to the demands of class and study, though the free time asked a few questions in and of itself.

Too much sleep is a no-no and there was the social adjustment too. She all but ditched Calgary’s energetic nightlife scene in 2012 after a stern talking-to from her parents but the absence of classes demanded extra effort to keep a healthy social circle.

An online English course has been picked up to keep the brain engaged and fulfil a few extra credits as she contemplates the possibility of studying medicine in Canada or Ireland, though these are all distant planets floating around the sun that is Rio for now.

Early season was badly hampered by a concussion suffered in a car accident but she was training again as normal by mid-January.

Any lingering worries as to her form or readiness for Brazil were assuaged by an encouraging fourth-place finish at the Europeans in May.

“That was the confidence booster that I needed, to know that just because I had this accident doesn’t mean everything is gone,” she admits.

“That all the work I had done beforehand was still there and has been worthwhile.”

Let the Games begin! @olympiccouncil @swimireland @Rio2016_en #rio2016 pic.twitter.com/FqD1MuXLcb

— Fiona Doyle (@Fionamdoyle) August 3, 2016

Twelve years of work. Half a lifetime. Doyle may have matured and can place the Olympics in its proper perspective now but this is still huge.

She knows that and so do her family, many of whom have made the trip to South America.

Among them is her grandfather Michael Doyle, the man who instigated the family’s lover affair with swimming when he founded a local club in Limerick.

Now 82, he came to the conclusion that this was something he had to see with his own eyes after originally deciding not to go.

Eimear, though, won’t make it.

Her twin sister had harboured hopes of a life in the pool as well. A back injury suffered when they were 16 put paid to them and the pause as Fiona Doyle prepares to talk about her sibling betrays the depth of emotion that fact still involves.

“Yeah. Her having to stop was very difficult because we are both goal-orientated. We both had the dream and we both wanted to be at the Olympics.

“Although she was a bit less outspoken than I was about it, it was still her dream too.

“I spent years getting up with her and going to the pool together every morning and training with her and going to competitions. Just having her there.

“For that to be gone was difficult. I know for her it was very difficult to see me do what she wanted to do. Even moving to Canada.

“I don’t even know if she would have moved to Canada but seeing me have these opportunities that she didn’t have was tough.

“Every time I go to a big meet she is there. She wants to know what is going on. Usually, she is the last person I get a call from or text before going out.

“Yeah. This is for her too.”