Home comforts can take Nick Griggs to the top

HOME SWEET HOME: Nick Griggs is not planning to fix what isn’t broken.

By now, Nick Griggs has “more or less” decided. 

For the 17-year-old middle-distance sensation, the path to senior success will not be paved at a US college, nor in Dublin, but at his current training base in Belfast.

For the past year, the Tyrone teenager has been commuting there to train with coach Mark Kirk, and he’s not planning to fix what isn’t broken. Now in his final year at Cookstown High School, Griggs plans to take a gap year once he finishes before likely enrolling at Ulster University. 

“As much as it would be great to go to UCD or DCU, there’s no real need for me to do it, so I’ve pretty much made up my mind,” he says.

Having emerged from relative obscurity to win European U20 gold over 3000m last year, Griggs set a high bar, but he exceeded it in 2022, setting a European U20 indoor mile record of 3:56.40 in March. Outdoors, he obliterated the Irish U20 3000m record with 7:53.40 ahead of his first global championships at the World U20s in Colombia.

Wheezing in the thin air of Cali, he finished ninth in the 3000m in 8:04.42, coming home 20 seconds behind the winner.

Experiences like that can discourage or embolden young athletes. For Griggs, it was the latter.

“It was something that needed to happen because it gives you a reality check. It definitely gave me a lot more drive and motivation to come back even stronger.”

He hopes to qualify for the European Indoor Championships in Istanbul next March over 3000m while next summer will be focused on defending his European U20 title. But first, Griggs has unfinished business at cross country. At last year’s Europeans in Dublin, he finished 16th in the U20 race, the Irish team beaten to gold by a single point. That stung.

“If I ran anywhere near what I can run, we’d have 100% won that so hopefully I can get a bit of redemption this year and we can take home that team gold.”

A sponsorship deal with Puma means he doesn’t “have to spend time (working) in a local shop” and Griggs says the brand has “done everything” he could ask for. A bad sinus infection after his end-of-season break, “one of the worst experiences” of his life, meant a delayed start to autumn training, but he has since put in two consistent months, including a “training run” of 14:15 at a Parkrun in Belfast last month. He’s ready.

At Sunday’s National Cross Country Championships in Rosapenna, Donegal, Griggs will start favourite for the U20 race and his goal is “100%” to win. Three weeks later, he hopes to make an individual podium and lead the Irish to gold at the Europeans in Italy. Long term, his sights are set on mixing it with the might of East Africa.

“I definitely have the ability and hopefully the work ethic to bridge that gap. I want to prove that you don’t have to be African or you don’t have to be (an) Ingebrigtsen; that you just can be a regular guy who didn’t start running until you are 14 or 15, but if you have the talent and the work ethic, you can compete with everybody.”