Focused Rohan happy going it alone on fast lane to glory

MARK Rohan lives the life of a professional athlete but he remembers how it was before a motorbike accident left him with four broken bones in his back, four compound fractures of his right leg, a bone broken on his left foot, four broken ribs, a torn Aorta, a broken sternum and a broken clavicle.

When he thinks about facing into a couple of hours’ training in the cold and the rain, the Westmeath man focuses on the positives in his lifestyle. “I can relate to so many people from a GAA background or Sunday club soccer, going out as a young lad and partying and those kind of things,” he smiles.

“I’m 32 and I have a good lot of experience about what it’s like not to be an athlete so I can appreciate where I am now and I am grateful for the opportunity I have. The majority of my friends dread work, but outside work they have sport. I get to do it full-time. I often think about sitting in front of that desk (in the ESB office) inputting data and Joe Duffy blaring. I was ready for the loony bin so I won’t complain about training.”

The double Olympic handcycling champion was at Morton Stadium in Santry last week to deliver a masterclass mentor session to Ireland’s Paralympic ‘Fast Track’ squad supported by Cadbury’s but, as he quips, “it’s not all gold medals and bars of chocolate”.

Some days he needs to find that person that will spit on him for motivation, to find the drive that will nick another second off his best time. Previously, he was part of Ireland’s wheelchair basketball team but, in his own words, he “did a Roy Keane on it” and left because he wanted things done to a higher standard.

Before his accident, Rohan was a promising Gaelic footballer, one that always wanted to test himself against the best. If his Castledaly were playing Garrycastle, that meant wanting to mark Dessie Dolan out of the game.

After his accident, which occurred as he travelled to play a soccer match in Tullamore, Rohan took over that same team but, again, standards weren’t high enough so he moved on.

Nowadays, it’s just him and the handcycle – a solitary battle with and against the bike. It can take its toll too.

“The mental health is an issue and rightly so,” Rohan explains. “Everybody, especially fellas our age, deal with mental issues at some point. But I suppose when you have a disability you’re more aware of people’s perceptions of you and it can be more difficult to do things. But for me that’s when I get to think clearly, when I’m on the bike I can put things into perspective.”

Rohan’s successes in London attracted the interest of Westmeath football manager Pat Flanagan, and the Paralympian joined the Lake County’s backroom team after initially giving them a motivational speech.

“You talk to people and they say they want to go to Rio (Paralympics in 2016), but nothing in this life comes easy and I suppose I have the right mental attitude. When I was in with Westmeath this year and I couldn’t believe what lads were complaining about and they didn’t realise the opportunity they had.

Westmeath twice played at Croke Park this year, losing to Derry in the Division 2 final and heavily to Dublin in the Leinster championship — but what was it that frustrated him so much?

“To see the potential is there to succeed and to not realise it, and all it needs is a bit more work… if you do set your ambitions a bit higher your sacrifices become greater, your level becomes greater.

To see those guys wasting an opportunity… you may get the chance to play in Croke Park once, to play in a league final once. I’ve sat on the pitch and I’ll never be there again… you can’t take things for granted and think they’ll be there year after year.”

Rohan is determined to make the most of what he’s got and is adamant that Paralympians in some ways have a bigger appeal than able-bodied athletes because circumstances often mean they have a more dramatic story to tell.

The media tend to look in the same places and ask the same questions to the same people, but the Westmeath man says that, able-bodied or not, there are great stories all around us.

“I was asked about the top 10 Irish athletes… at the moment there’s a guy called Eugene Laverty and he’s a superbike racer.

“He’s the top three in the world in an ultra competitive sport and he’s one of the top athletes in the country but nobody knows him.

“Yet people will know who the boxers are because they get coverage. If you can get the press interested, they can say ‘here’s a story that will sell papers’.

“There’s a lot of people who call themselves elite athletes and the truth of the matter is they aren’t.

“Some of the stories from London (2012)… there was a hand-cyclist from Haiti and he had been paralysed in the earthquake that killed his wife and eight kids. A Swiss guy went over, mentored him and got him into the games.

That story would just blow your mind.”