Behan hopes floor plan can lead him to glory
In Dublin yesterday to collect a cheque for €20,000 from the Olympic Council of Ireland, the 5ft 3ins Surrey-born Irish gymnast and World Cup floor champion was whizzed through a dizzying array of media interviews, shunning the offer of a chair whenever it was made.
It’s his knees, see.
Behan has torn cruciate ligaments in both knees this last few years so he prefers to stand to keep the blood flowing. It’s no big deal. Not for a guy who has gone through a list of misfortune that would fill a medical journal or a Hollywood screenplay.
You’ve probably scanned the list before now: the childhood illness, the brain damage suffered on his eventual return to the gymnasium and the fact that he was told by doctors on both occasions that he would never walk again. Then there was the minor stuff, the broken arm, the fractured wrist, but some of the scars aren’t so visible. There was the taunting he endured from kids in school when confined to a wheelchair and the terror of a thousand blackouts.
It’s little wonder then that he breezed through the bank of questions and cameras at the Shelbourne Hotel as he explained just where he found the inner strength to defy modern medicine and qualify for the London Games.
“It did come from the first injury as a kid, from being told you would never walk again.
“Because I was a little kid and could see the other kids running around and bouncing around in the gym, it was the want to get back doing what a kid does every day.”
Truth is, Behan has fought adversity for so long and in so many forms that it must be second nature by now but the receipt of the grant from the OCI has consigned one of the most challenging of those to history for now.
Money has always been a problem.
It takes €15,000 a year to fund his passion.
His parents Phil and Bernie haven’t had a holiday in 10 years and Kieran has done everything from wash cars to holding raffles to sweeping the gym floor to make ends meet.
Until last November, he was working in construction with his dad which meant alarm calls at 6am, work until four in the afternoon and training through to 10 at night. It couldn’t continue, not when heneeded to be training five hours a day, six days a week.
When he returns to London, he will go about finding a flat close to the gym in Tolworth and bring to an end what was a two-hour commute from his parents’ house
Another item on the agenda will be driving lessons: until now dropping £30 a pop on something like that would have been impossible to justify.
“I can’t wait to just know I can go into that gym every day and knuckle down and hopefully achieve more, work hard and not worry about if I have enough money to get to training today.”
It’s been a good trip home.
He flew in with his parents on Monday to stay with his grandmother Lily in Santry and he will hang around a bit longer to do some training before returning to the UK and continue the build-up to the World Cup circuit.
Last year was his first time on it and he finished as floor champion.
He will give over the majority of his time to his specialist discipline between now and the summer when he follows in the footsteps of Barry McDonald who competed in Atlanta in 1996.
His goals come July and August are simple.
“Whatever the judges see and whatever they give is up to them, but for me it’s about going out there, maxing out my floor and doing Ireland proud.”
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