Irish aces keep on track for glory
MUNICH’S STAR ATHLETES IMPART THEIR WORDS OF WISDOM
ALL EYES are on Munich this week, where Ireland’s best athletes and sports stars are already climbing the medal table at the European Championships.
Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy — the reigning European, World and Olympic champions — claimed yet another gold in the rowing event on Sunday.
The lightweight men’s double sculls pair cruised into first place in their final.
Paul is just one of many of Ireland’s representatives at this summer’s festival of sport to have passed on words of wisdom to Fitter Happier readers on these pages in recent times, as we recall here...
PAUL O’DONOVAN (ROWING) ON FUELLING FOR COMPETITION…
The Corkman often has to drop several kilos to weigh in at 71kg for his event — so how does he manage that while fueling himself to be at his best?
“I don’t find it too difficult. I suppose we’re not the tallest. Some of the guys we are racing, certainly in the past, might be 6’2 or 6’3; really skinny fellows.,” he said.
“But I think once you do it slowly it’s a bit easier. You have to think a little bit ahead and see how much you have to lose every week. You wouldn’t be quite waking up on the 71 (on the day of the race).
“Say you might be 72-and-a-half and then you’d put on a load of gear and spin the legs on the bike for 30 or 40 minutes, and you’d sweat out the last kilo-and-ahalf.
“Then you’d have a pint of milk for the electrolytes and hydration afterwards and you are good to go then for the race.
“Maybe a slice of bread or something as well for the bit of extra fuel.
“You are training a lot more in the couple of weeks leading up to a race, so you are burning more calories.”
FIONNUALA MCCORMACK (MARATHON) ON WOMEN IN SPORT...
McCormack gave birth to daughter Isla in 2019 — and she hopes Isla has a wide range of female sporting role models to look up to as she grows up.
“I think it’s important for young girls to be able to see girls or women play sports,” she said. “I’m old enough to remember that there weren’t really role models. We obviously had Sonia (O’Sullivan) and Catherina (McKiernan), they were the big ones for us.
“But in other sports there wasn’t really... I remember a time when I wanted to be a soccer player and I quickly realised that only boys can become soccer players.
“You play sport when you are younger, but if you want to be serious about it, it was men.
“Obviously it’s not like that anymore, which is great. For me it is nice when I go down to my club and the girls there can see what they can do if they want and put in the effort.”
AOIFE COOKE (MARATHON) ON NEVER BEING TOO YOUNG TO START…
By the time Aoife Cooke got serious about competitive running, she figured she was too old to ever consider an Olympic bid.
But at the age of 34 she secured the qualifying time for Tokyo and was part of Team Ireland at last year’s Games.
“In 2015 I thought, am I too old to make any significant improvements at this stage? When you look now, you see people running well into their 40s and at the top of their game,” she said.
“I’m talking about people like Sinead Diver in Australia, Lizzie Lee, who qualified for Rio when she was 36. Looking back now, I suppose I was fairly young. When I came back from the injuries in 2015 I decided to give the running a go again.
“I didn’t have plans for the Olympics, it was just about getting moving and getting into competitive running, joining a club and the social aspect.
“I did the marathon in 2015 but I wasn’t training properly for it.
“But after that I started doing 10 miles and half-marathons, and my times started improving. I thought to myself at that point that if I train properly and plan races, that I could do something pretty special.”
THOMAS BARR (400M HURDLES) ON MOTIVATION…
If you are struggling to get off the couch and out for a run, athletics star Barr has some advice for you.
“At one point running was just a hobby for me — there were days when I didn’t want to get off the couch,” he said.
“The weather was miserable and I was nice and cosy in the house. Those were the days where I really didn’t want to go training.
“Even now that it has become my job, there are also days where I don’t want to go to work, just like anyone else. But I have to.
“The key to my motivation is having other people around me — a training partner or partners. The biggest motivator for me is knowing that I won’t be doing it on my own, whether it’s running or a workout in the gym.
“It’s a social thing for me as well as going and actually training and trying to achieve whatever goals I have set.
“So the first piece of advice I would give to somebody who wants to try and stay motivated is to find somebody with similar goals.
“That might be simply wanting to get out and get fit, or aiming to run a 5k or 10k.”
RHASIDAT ADELEKE (400M) ON FINDING YOUR PASSION…
Adeleke emerged as a sprint prospect in 2017 when, at 14, she claimed a junior sprint double at the Irish School Championships.
Prior to that, she played basketball, volleyball and Gaelic, but her form on the track convinced her that her future lay in athletics.
“I had a feeling I was fast when I was young, but fast enough to compete with the best when I was 14,” she said. “In the 2017 indoors I kind of had my breakthrough. I ran qualifying times for Europeans out of nowhere. No-one saw it coming. That’s where it came from.
“Since then I have just tried to work harder, so I could achieve more. I also tried to stay humble and realise that this was just the beginning. I knew I would have to keep working and to keep my head down, so that I could repeat that every year.”