McElhinney looking to pick his battles in Istanbul

The young West Cork native takes on a top-tier field on Saturday.

Wed, 01 Mar, 2023 - 07:35

Cathal Dennehy

Major championships can be cruel, callousing places to hone your craft – something that takes time, patience and typically a whole lot of pain before things tend to click. Granted, there’s the occasional freak like Jakob Ingebrigtsen or Usain Bolt, athletes so replete with physical gifts and big-stage bravado that they can set the Olympic stage alight at 20 or 21, but usually, that’s not how it works.

Usually, you have to take a few beatings before you know how to handle yourself.

At 22, Darragh McElhinney has already spent plenty of time around this particular block. By now, the native of Glengarriff, Co. Cork, has a fair idea of what to do and, perhaps more importantly, what not to do.

Take the World Indoor Championships in Belgrade last year, his debut on the senior global stage. He’d gone there in great nick, having clocked 7:45.91 for 3000m, but as the field dawdled through the first kilometre in 2:48, it felt unnaturally hard to McElhinney, who spent most of that time “pushing people or getting pushed, out in lane two or three.”

When the wheels began to turn in the last kilometre, McElhinney was like a horse who’d spent the first half of a race pulling for its head, his inability to settle leaving the fuel gauge deep in the red. He trailed home ninth in 8:06.31.

“I came off the track feeling deflated and nearly embarrassed,” he says. “I did nothing well.”

Five months later, he lined up at the European Championships in Munich and turned in a much better showing, contending for a top-six finish until the final lap of the 5000m. But then the wheels came off, McElhinney coming home 16th. “I don’t have any regrets,” he says now, proud of how he went for it against Europe’s best.

He did the same at the European Cross Country in Italy in December, trying to better his individual silver from the 2021 edition in Dublin, taking on the formidable Charles Hicks of Britain. But on a hilly, undulating course that didn’t play to McElhinney’s strengths, the first slight crack quickly expanded into a full-blown crevasse. He virtually staggered to the finish in 26th.

“Had it been a flatter course, I’d have been able to hold on to a degree, but the way it worked out was that when I went over the red line, the blow-up was fairly spectacular,” he says. “It chewed me up and spat me out.”

What annoyed him most was that he’d ended his track season early, despite knowing he was in personal best shape, to lay down a large base in preparation for that race. Despite winning the national title in Donegal in November, he describes it as a “failed cross country season.”

That’s a measure of where he’s got to in recent years. On the track, McElhinney was the fastest Irish U20 in history over 5000m and he’s the fastest Irish U-23 ever over 3000m and 5000m, running 7:42.86 and 13:17.17 last summer. Now in his final year of a history and politics degree at UCD, where he trains under coach Emmett Dunleavy, he looked better than ever when winning the Irish indoor 3000m title last month, unleashing a vicious final lap of 25 seconds.

Wheels like that are hard to find in distance-running, and McElhinney has long had them. It’s not something he works on specifically, though he’s hit the gym a lot harder these past two years, developing power that was on full display in that race. The only issue is producing it when it matters most.

On Saturday morning, he will have another chance when he lines up at the European Indoor Championships in Istanbul, taking on both the very good and an all-time great.

Jakob Ingebrigtsen will likely prove untouchable in the race for gold, but McElhinney knows there is a horde of others clustered at a very similar level behind the Norwegian star. He is ranked 10th of 23 competitors, and has the tools to be in the 12-man final on Sunday. For McElhinney to thrive, though, the lessons of Belgrade and Munich will need to be carried on each of those 15 laps.

“The key is to run as relaxed as possible,” he says. “If I get a spare ride to the last kilometre, I’ll be able to close as well as any of them, maybe apart from Ingebrigtsen. I’ve watched races back, and seen what lads did to avoid all that (trouble) and you can if you’re smart and pick your battles.

“Once I run within myself and stay comfortable, I’ll be able to call on that kick. I think I’m in just as good shape, if not better, than a lot of guys who are ranked fairly highly, so I don’t think there’s any reason the race should get away from me.”

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