Dream dies for Ó Lionáird
The 24-year-old Macroom native, 10th in the World Championships in Daegu last year, has been blighted by injuries with an unresolved problem in his left Achilles tendon haunting him this season.
But, coaxed by family and friends, he battled onto the track last night to fulfil a dream of competing in the Olympic Games.
That dream quickly turned to a nightmare, so much so the Cork man left the stadium, unsure and uncertain if he will ever return to running.
The Leevale AC competitor finished 13th in a 14th man field in a time of 3:48.35, ironically a season best. But a far cry from the 3:34.46 he recorded in Oordegem, Belgium to qualify for these Games, a performance which ranked him fourth in the all-time Irish 1500m list behind legends, Ray Flynn, Marcus O’Sullivan, Frank O’Mara.
A shattered Ó Lionáird said: “I don’t have to keep doing this. If there is a chance I can get healthy again then, yes, but right now I am so far away from that point I am going to do what I did in 2010 and just take a long time off.
“I could move on tomorrow (from athletics) and be perfectly fine with it if I knew I couldn’t do it. I am not someone who is clinging onto the dream.
“I just want to be able to go out and run. I think about my future. I want to be pain free for the rest of my life. And that has been a long time after six or seven years of injury. I had that 12 to 18 months where I was healthy but even then I struggled to remain being pain free. That is frustrating because I know how good I can be if I am healthy.”
Ó Lionáird revealed he has a Masters Degree from Florida State in Sports Management and has plans to ‘start putting that to use’.
The three time All American also addressed the issue of his decision to leave coach Bob Braman to join Mark Rowland’s Oregon Track Club Elite Group. “I am not going to look back on what I could have done or what not. I could have not made the coaching change I did at the very beginning of the year and this might not have happened but I cannot go back and change what I did. After 10th place last year at the worlds I really did think ‘what do I need to do to get a medal?’ I could have consolidated and kept building on what I did but I did shoot to be the best in the world. It is time to think and re-evaluate and see whether I can become the best in the world. If I can’t then I don’t intend doing this.
He also revealed recent medical examinations of his Achilles tendon have failed to diagnosis the exact nature of the problem. “The scans are completely clear. They show no tears, nothing at all. That is the frustrating thing. If there is a tear in it, I would be like ‘alright I’m done, fine, decision made.’ But when you get all the scans and there is nothing there, what do you do? You start thinking is it in your head.”
When quizzed if he could take anything from the experience he pondered for a moment and without maintaining eye contact replied: “What can I take from it? There is nothing I can take from it. It has been pretty much hell from beginning to end, from not being able to do the Opening Ceremony. I’ve been pretty much sitting in my room trying to stay off my leg as much as possible. I haven’t really met or seen anybody. On Friday I went from my room to the track, warmed up and got second next to last in my heat, I will pack my bags, leave and get away from it and that is pretty much the Olympics for me right there.”
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