Weight of the world not a burden for Darcy

IMAGINE working every minute towards something for weeks, months and years and it all came down to one moment.

The World University Games kick off this morning in Shenzhen, China. You might not be aware that Ireland has dispatched 26 student athletes to compete in six sports.

First up for those in green is a weightlifter who studies in Edinburgh but hails from Headford. To paraphrase Michael Ó Muircheartaigh: neither a weightlifting stronghold.

Meet Galway man Kevin Darcy who will step up to the bar in the 85kg weightlifting class this weekend.

“Headford would not be a hot bed, no. I wouldn’t be one to go looking for the publicity really,” he tells me this week from his base.

“I’m sure people might have seen pieces in the local papers over the years but nothing major.”

Like myself, Darcy is that rare mix: brain and brawn. He’s currently in his final year of study for a physiotherapy degree in Aberdeen, having already tacked an economics qualification from NUIG over the mantelpiece. He’s been competing in weightlifting for a decade — prior to that he competed in jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts. This is road less travelled. But Darcy is relishing finally arriving at his destination.

“I really can’t wait to get out there. Can’t wait. It’s the biggest event I’ll ever be involved in. I believe they have a village set up for the athletes and it’s second only in magnitude — the tournament — to the Olympics.”

He isn’t used to bespoke facilities and the flash of cameras. The story of Ireland’s weightlifting community is a slow-burner and is self-published.

Darcy and his contemporaries, it’s fair to say, raise their own cash for equipment, train themselves, organise events and encourage each other.

“There’s a group of us who have been around a while. We’ve done it the hard way — saving up ourselves, self-teaching, going away for training and we’ve made our own progress.

“Now it’s at the stage where everyone involved — the organisation, the clubs, the participants — are all really pushing the envelope. There’s been a have few lads come through in areas that wouldn’t traditionally produce guys. It’s a sport really on the up now in Ireland,” he says.

But it’s been a heavy load. With a sigh, he adds: “It has been a really hard slog. A lot of heartaches and pain, if I’m honest.

“At one stage when I was in college I was working days as well as six nights a week in a nightclub and training as well. And you save up for a training camp where we’d go to, you know, somewhere like the Ukraine which is dirt cheap.

“So the idea in going to somewhere like that is you can afford to live there for a while and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg but you’re in the worst conditions. The worst. But you love it. You wouldn’t do it otherwise.”

Therein lies the rub. They do it because they love it. Where did this unorthodox romance first blossom? “I’d been in the gym and was lifting weights because I used to do martial arts but I didn’t lift competitively until I was 18, which is late really for weightlifting.

“And once I started, I had good results; I won the U18, U20 Irish titles and then once I went over 20 — which is senior — I won the national title and broke the record. And I’ve broken it every year since.

“When I started there wasn’t many doing it but in the last few years there’s been a real growth there.”

Darcy — whose extremely supportive family will be keeping tabs from the shores of Lough Corrib — folded away his books in Edinburgh on Wednesday night, walked through the maddening crowd of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and prepared for an early morning flight yesterday.

He’s not certain what will greet him off the plane this week.

“I’m not sure what the standard is going to be like out here. [Ireland official] Harry [Leech] says a top 10 might be do-able but I’m a good man to perform on the day and if I see an opportunity to maybe get in the top five, I think that might be on.

“I don’t suffer too badly from nerves — I’m around a long time at this stage. There’s six months training goes into it and it’s decided by something that’s 0.7 of a second in duration. So there’s a bit of pressure there considering all that effort and work. But you just want to get up there and get it done at that stage.”