Cathal Dennehy:Sad and competitive? You bet. My bid to get an edge in the media's 800m race
ON TRACK: Irish media representatives, Chloe O'Neill, Clara Hester, Cillian Sheeran, Darragh Bambrick, Darren Frehill and Cathal Dennehy.
The WhatsApp text from my friend, a physio in the US, ended with a final, hopeful instruction: “Rest 48 hours before the race, and cross the fingers you get through it.” It was the week before the Tokyo World Championships, where I was travelling as a reporter and not – it should be stressed – as an athlete. But midway through each World Champs, there’s a race that brings journalists together in a unifying, unedifying spectacle – a heel-striking, heavy-breathing collection of has-beens and never-weres, slugging around two laps of the track, feeling what life is like for the athletes they cover.
Welcome to the media 800m, which brings around 150 journalists face to face with their own limitations. Or lack of talent. Or lack of discipline. I won it at a few times in my 20s and early 30s, but to say that with any pride is like bragging that you once beat a bunch of chess players at tennis. However, a fourth-place finish at the last edition in Budapest – which, being Irish, felt a little too on point – left me keen to set things right.
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