'Athletics was my first love. It's never a sacrifice, always a privilege' - Ambitious Millet aiming for the top

In a few months’ time, 21-year-old long jumper Ruby Millet will wrap up her degree in mathematical science and physics at UCC, and that’s where things could get tricky.

Thu, 12 Jan, 2023 - 06:23

Cathal Dennehy

The biggest jump of all is the one up ahead, looming large on Ruby Millet’s horizon.

In a few months’ time, the 21-year-old long jumper will wrap up her degree in mathematical science and physics at UCC, and that’s where things could get tricky. This is the point where so many promising careers in Irish athletics fall off the tracks – the rigours of elite-level training often incompatible with the modern-day workplace.

It's an issue they’ve long been aware of at the Sport Ireland Institute, and in 2018 they took steps to address it by setting up the Athlete Friendly Employer Network, pairing athletes with workplaces that allow them the flexibility to chase their sporting dreams.

Millet (pronounced Mee-yay), is already seeing the benefit of engaging with it, having been given advice on how to approach college administrators to ask for deadline extensions if she falls behind due to competitions abroad. As she eyes up a master’s degree in artificial intelligence or software engineering at UL, she’s also having discussions about finding work in the tech sector that would suit her schedule.

“I know, whatever it is, it’ll be part-time to enable me to give it everything (in athletics),” she says. “It just wouldn’t be feasible to do a full-time job and try come out the end of it and train really well, especially in field events.”

Millet competes for St Abban’s, the powerhouse club in Laois, while her home in Kilkenny sits close to the three-way border with Carlow and Laois. Her father is French, her mother is Irish, and her journey into athletics came about via older sister Nessa, a three-time national senior champion at 400m hurdles. Nessa is six years her senior, and Ruby was a regular presence at the track from the age of four, going on to win a slew of underage national titles in her teenage years.

Her big breakthrough came in 2019 when she broke the Irish U20 indoor long jump record with 6.20m. In 2021 she improved to 6.32m, and last year Millet jumped 6.42m to win the national senior indoor title. Outdoors, Millet jumped 6.58m, 6.62m and 6.63m at different events but all of them didn’t count as personal bests due to the wind being above the allowable limit (2.0m/s).

Coached by Michael and Eoin Kelly, the father and son at the heart of St Abban’s, Millet does most of her technical work under their guidance in Laois between Fridays and Mondays, with her general conditioning done in Cork from Tuesday to Thursday. At the UCC gym in The Mardyke, some of the staff call her “the beast” after witnessing the way she trains.

She opened her season with a 6.16m jump last weekend, and Millet will be back at the National Indoor Arena in Abbotstown on Saturday for the 123.ie National U20 and U23 Indoor Championships. She will have to jump 6.50m and be ranked in the top-18 to compete at the European Indoors in Istanbul in March, while Kelly Proper’s Irish long jump record of 6.62m is also in her sights.

“The thing with it is just getting consistent. If I can get consistently jumping 6.60m, I can jump 6.80m once off. If I could get consistently jumping 6.70m, I could get a 6.90m once off.”

That would put her up there at international level, and as she peers down the line Millet is making sure the runway is cleared of all barriers that might halt her progress: “Athletics was my first love. There's never been anything I've ever wanted to put before it. It's never a sacrifice, always a privilege.”