Tokyo Games not the only destination on Niamh McCarthy's journey

Niamh McCarthy of Ireland in action during the Women's Discus Throw F41 Final at Olympic Stadium during the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games. Picture: Diarmuid Greene/Sportsfile

Lockdowns have forced most elite athletes to bend to its limitations so that ambitions further down the track are not broken.

Niamh McCarthy has been no different. Training has taken her on a circuit of venues this last year or so: From Carrigaline GAA Club to the Mardyke, what was still CIT, and to the high-performance centre at Leevale AC where she has been based now for a number of months.

The 2016 Paralympic silver medallist has been forced to practise throwing a tea towel in her own back garden and she is eagerly awaiting the day when she can step outdoors again when the disc can fly freely rather than into a protective net.

For her, the pandemic latched on to a difficult 2019 which, in pure sporting terms, was even harder to deal with thanks to unavoidable changes to her coaching support network. For all that, she is happy enough right now with where things are at.

“I don’t think there’s anything missing,” she says. “Competition would be the big one, obviously.”

Obviously. It’s 16 months and counting since McCarthy last threw competitively and, while the first Para Athletic Grand Prix was run off in Dubai last week, it will likely be April before the 27-year old gets to pin a number on to her singlet again.

There are events on the calendar between now and then but trips to and from places like Tunis and Sao Paolo seem like a stretch given the wider picture right now, Jesolo in Italy, in mid-April, seems like a more achievable starting point on the road to Tokyo.

There were opportunities to fill this void last year with events in Ireland but the disruptions to training schedules and the period in 2019 which saw her progress as an athlete stall for the first time, made her wary of jumping back in before her feet were firmly on the ground.

“There is a bit of fear there as well because I hadn’t trained in so long. I could have gone along just for the craic but if I got a poor result it could have shaken me a bit. In a normal year, a poor enough result, I wouldn’t really look back on it, but with everything already uncertain as it was a little bump like that could have a bigger effect than it normally would.”

She will hardly be alone in thinking like that. Only five athletes competed in her F41 discus class at that Fazza Championships in Dubai this month. Ireland was one of dozens of nations not to have a representative for the four days.

Niamh McCarthy during a training session at her home in Carrigaline, Cork. Picture: Sam Barnes

All of this is out of her hands. Will the Europeans go ahead as planned in June? How likely is it that both Games will go ahead later in the year? Who knows? For McCarthy and so many other athletes, that conjecture is all wasted energy.

She has plenty to be getting on with between five days of training every week, a part-time role with Dell and the odd spring-cleaning project at home. There s also the small matter of what will or will not happen for her once 2021 has come and gone.

“I had a bit of a rough year this year in terms of planning what am I going to do after sport, whether Tokyo goes ahead or it doesn’t. What am I going to do? Am I going to continue putting my time into this or what? There was a bit of a panic.

“Some people grow up knowing what they want to do for the rest of their lives, but I wasn’t one of them.

Sport kind of came out of the blue and washed away a lot of my other plans so I hadn’t planned anything else.

An answer finally presented itself in the form of a pilates instructor course which has given her peace of mind and a clear line of sight beyond Tokyo. That may not have happened had Covid not interjected and forced us all into a bit of introspection.

And perspective.

Whatever happens next, she already has Rio five years ago. Not so much the medal — and others — which sits underneath her bed but the memories of snatched moments with her mum and uncle, visiting the ‘Big Jesus’ with Noelle Lenihan or the athletes’ village.

“You were able to roll in and get breakfast, cereal or whatever, at any time of the day or night. That was nice, to be able to enjoy it. Sit down in the food hall for two hours and just watch everyone. People watch. That was the best part of it nearly for me.”