Concentrating on what he’s good at is paying off for Smyth

Gaelic football was more his thing, where Smyth’s pace was well utilised on the wing. At St. Fintan’s High School in Sutton, Raheny Shamrock AC President Paddy Noonan would often enquire about his games when they’d meet in the yard, asking how many points he’d scored, then always telling Smyth he’d be better off in athletics. Eventually, he listened.

Fri, 21 Apr, 2023 - 07:38

Cathal Dennehy

Long before Mark Smyth was one of the quickest Irishmen in history over 200 metres, he was a cross country runner of little renown. In truth, he was a student who’d turn out just to get a day off school. But the sadistic slog of that sport was never to his liking, his performances typifying the track runners’ adage that you shouldn’t drive a Ferrari in a mucky field.

“I’d literally come last in every race,” he says.

The turning point came at a “bottom of the barrel” schools' meeting in Santry. Smyth was munching a ham and cheese roll in the stands when coach Kay Bannon told him to get down on the track pronto for the upcoming 200m. “I didn’t have my spikes, she made me wear someone’s f***ing clown shoes,” he laughs. “But I won it, and I haven’t looked back since.”

Knowing his talent, Bannon “harassed” Smyth’s mother in the weeks that followed – “rightfully so,” he says – to get him training with Raheny. Smyth soon joined up along with two friends, who were both faster than him at the time. But once he was exposed to proper training, with Bannon cleaning up his technique, teaching him drills, he left them in his wake. Both soon gave up the sport, while Smyth stuck at it.

“I got success quite quickly and if it wasn’t for that, I don’t think I’d have stayed in it. I have that personality where I’ll only do something if I’m good at it.” Turns out, he was very good at it. At the Irish Juvenile Championships he squared off with Aaron Sexton, the Bangor student who was obliterating schools' records, but Smyth beat him to gold. “That was my moment of, ‘Oh s***, I’m actually good at this,’” he says.

In 2017 Smyth went to the European U20 Championships in Italy as an “absolute nobody,” ranked 32nd in the 200m, but finished sixth in a big PB of 21.36. That result forced him to close the door on GAA and give sprinting his full focus, with Smyth enrolling at Dublin City University, where he’s currently doing a master’s in emerging media.

Since missing the 2018 season glandular fever, he’s made quiet, steady progress, breaking 21 seconds for the first time in 2021. Last year – in a season hampered by injury and the demands of his undergraduate finals at DCU – he took his 200m best down to 20.89. Then, at the Leinster Indoor Championships in March, he clocked a blazing 20.64 to smash the previous Irish indoor record of 20.75, set 20 years ago by Paul Brizzel. Was that a surprise? “No, I did know I could do it. It was more relief – that you’re doing the right stuff and it’s all coming together.”

Now 24, Smyth is still guided by Bannon, who sought advice from other coaches and tinkered with his training over the winter. “Kay is a mad thing, she’s bonkers, and that’s what I like about her: she doesn’t stick to the norm,” he says. “She’s like a second mother.”

Given his physique, Smyth is asked “once a week” if he intends to move to the 400m, though don’t bet on that anytime soon. “Seeing lads getting sick in training doesn’t really do it for me. I know I could do the 400m if I wanted, but I couldn’t be bothered and I want to master the 100m and 200m first, and maybe one day if there’s a 4x400m I’ll jump in.”

Having recently returned from a training camp in Turkey, he will open his season at the Irish University Championships today, which take place at Dundrum South Dublin’s track in Taylorsgrange, south Dublin. It’s a shiny new venue for the oldest National Intervarsity Track and Field Championships in the world, the first edition staged exactly 150 years ago.

DCU has swept the men’s and women’s titles since 2007, and that dominance looks set to continue. For Smyth, tomorrow’s 200m final will be a good chance to test his form, his eyes already looking down the track to the World Championships in Budapest in August. His recent breakthrough has shown him he can make it there and if does, then the Paris Olympics are also within reach.

“That’s the big aim,” he says. “We need to get in big races to get (qualification) points, but it’s about not going overboard, not putting too much stress on myself. Just gotta hope, and believe.”