Enjoy the best of Irish athletics in its purest form
Athletics is a professional sport intertwined with some harsh realities, that even the biggest fans and competitors find difficult to ignore: drug busts, devastating injuries and the realisation that you are just not good enough to be amongst the world elite, which is sometimes the harshest reality of all.
Yet each year, there is one day that banishes all these aspects from our minds and we bask in the purity of the sport.
The All-Ireland Championships, hosted each year in Tullamore, is almost certainly the best organised athletics meet in the country and it provides an amazing showcase of the next generation of stars. Each event is a straight final, with two representatives from every province.
I was in Portugal last week while the Schools’ Championships were on and my coach Terrie was in Belgium with the Irish women’s sprint relay team but despite the fact I was lying by a pool, relaxing in the sun, I was still sending Terrie pictures and results, curious to get her opinion.
The Championships are a snapshot into the future of the sport in Ireland.
I competed in the schools’ event every year I was in secondary school. It was always a massive competition for me. I won some titles and I lost some. The defeats were devastating, the victories felt euphoric.
At that age, there are no limits to dreams and nor should there be. Each time I competed, the races were tough, making the good days in Tullamore feel especially worthwhile. Driving home to Cork after winning a schools’ title was one of the greatest feelings.
It’s been years since I’ve toed the line in Tullamore but I still get excited when I see the results of athletes competing on final day. The chance is always that one or maybe even two of these kids could be an athletics star. Athletics is measurable, times and distances are recorded making comparisons to previous performances easy. I can compare the times I ran at that age to the times the girls are doing now.
At this year’s event, there were loads of athletes whose performances made them stand out. The athlete of the meet was Harry Purcell, who pulled off a really tough double winning the 400m and 800m, breaking the schools 800m record and barely missing out on the 400m record while pushed hard to the finish in both races, a testament to the high standard.
Another good double came from Sam Healy, winning the sprint hurdles and long jump, and it’s great to see someone combining two technical events and excelling at both.
Siofra Cleirigh-Buttner won her 14th Schools’ title when she took the 1500m girls senior race. She had a stellar schools career and can look to the future excited about where those fast legs will take her. Her future may take her down the route of a US scholarship or she may chose to stay at home to hone her skills. The debate about home and away for athletics is one that doesn’t have a clear answer.
On the speed front, Zak Irwin won a great sprint double. A really exciting prospect in the girls’ sprints is Gina Akpe Moses, who won both sprints in the intermediate age group.
Looking to the future of my event, the sprint hurdles, there was a great run from Molly Scott in the intermediate girls hurdles. It’s amazing to see young girls putting in times that I couldn’t get near at that age.
I find schools athletics intriguing because it comes at an age where the future of all these young athletes is unknown. It’s nice to speculate about where they will end up with their athletics. Maybe in 10 years time Molly Scott will be on a start line somewhere in Europe as the new Irish sprint hurdles record holder or perhaps Harry Purcell will become a 400m athlete and challenge David Gillick’s Irish record.
My other coach Sean has a theory about looking at results and times from athletes at this age. He thinks it only tells a small part of the story. Looking through the results doesn’t tell how much an athlete wants to succeed or how hard they are willing to work after they finish school and look to progress. Unlike a 100m sprint race, desire and work ethic are not quantifiable, two attributes which don’t appear on the results sheets.
The race I remember most from my schools’ athletics days was my senior girls 100m hurdle final when I was in fifth year. I lost, my run was bad and there was a faster girl on the day. The result didn’t mean my future in athletics was in doubt, it simply meant I had to get better.
There were many performances from the Schools’ All-Irelands this year that are easy to pick out but there were also many kids whose story wasn’t told on the results sheet.
I’d bet that there are some kids who came away from Tullamore without a medal but with more motivation than ever. Maybe that will be the kid who shines in the future.
The results of the All-Ireland Schools’ Championships may be a snapshot of the future but that is all it is, it doesn’t tell the whole story. It gives us athletics fans enough information to daydream about future medallists and record holders but also enough reasons to remember all the good, and to love the sport at its purest level.
