IF you heard Ciara Mageean talk about running for Ireland and saw that sparkle dancing in her eyes, you’d have shivers down your spine too.
Something inside so strong comes out when she thinks of the shamrock over her heart, the green, white and gold rising and The Soldier’s Song blasting out…
That’s why Mageean does what she does and the nation will hold its breath when the Portaferry woman stands on the line for the 1500m final alongside the best in the world at the Paris Olympic Games which begin in late July. Now established among the world’s elite, she knows that producing her best at the Stade de France will give her every chance of winning a medal and making her dream come true.
“The only reason I gave up camogie and stuck with the athletics is because I could run for Ireland,” says the disarmingly down-to-earth 31-year-old.
“I am an emotional wreck, I’ll get tearful thinking about it! Seeing the tricolour raised and hearing Amhrán na bhFiann ring around the stadium is everything I do it for.
“It gets so much harder as you get older, getting to senior level at athletics. I genuinely believe when I step onto the track I am running for Ireland and it feels like this is the reason I run.
“I don’t run to be a professional athlete. I am fortunate it is my job right now, but if I was doing it for free I would still be out there running for Ireland, because I just love it.
“To represent your nation at the highest level is just such an honour. For me the vest has always had that special power and it always will which makes it hard when I’m donating some vests away (which she does) because there are certain vests I feel are special and I need to keep for a wall at home.
“They are hard-earned and hard-fought for, and the medals are extremely tough to get. I come home to Portaferry, and the sheer joy, no matter how I perform, that it brings my hometown, and I come to clubs around Ireland, the joy it brings to everyone around Ireland, it just lifts you. It’s a special thing.”
By her own estimation, 2023 was the “season of her life”. She broke three Irish records on the way to the 1500m final at the World Championships and then produced the performance of her life.
She finished fourth just a couple of strides behind the medallists and admits she cried afterwards. But, when the dust had settled, she quickly realised she had produced a truly special run and that has given her the confidence to know she can break through the glass ceiling at Paris.
“I came off that track having come fourth and I was so disappointed because I was close to a medal,” she says.
“That was tantalisingly close but I can’t walk away from a World Championships having come fourth and run the fastest I had ever done and say I’m super-disappointed in that.
“I can say I wish it had been another position forward and on a different day with a different field it might well have been, in a different championship it would have been a medal.
“I’m competing among the greatest 1500m field of all time: Is that a joy?/Is that not a joy? All you can say is: ‘Look, isn’t that a fantastic place to be?’.
“So yeah, I was disappointed, and it took me a wee bit of time but I re-evaluated and realised that was the performance of my life.”
Mageean says she would love “an oul sprint finish” in Paris. A tactical race and an all-out burst for the line would suit her style but she can’t control how the race will pan out on that summer night in the French capital.
What she can control is getting there in the best possible shape and, if she does that, she has every chance.
“You need luck on your side, you definitely do, and there’s been championships when luck hasn’t been on my side,” she says.
“There’s nothing I can do about that, we live in a world where something can change at the roll of a dice. I do everything that I can do and there’s no point in me stressing over the things beyond my control.
“Do I lose sleep over those things? Maybe, there are things I will be thinking about before I fall asleep and wishing things were different but every aspect of life is like that.”
She is friendly and humble off the track, but Mageean is a fierce competitor on it and she has driven herself relentlessly to get to this level. She doesn’t tend to read reports or analysis of her performances and says she’s her “own worst critic”.
“You wouldn’t believe the criticism I can give myself after a performance if I feel I should have done better,” she says.
“I do care what people think, I would like people to think I’m a nice person and a good person, that’s more the values I place in life.
“When it comes to athletics, I am giving it my absolute all and the pressure comes from within to finish my career and be proud of what I’ve done, that I have no regrets and that I gave it everything I possibly could. That’s the ethos I’m living through so the pressure is mostly within. I would just love with all my might to bring more medals home.
“There is a joy to being able to do my sport and there is a joy to be able to go out and think: ‘What is the best I can get out of my body?’.
“And if the best I can get out of my body is just short of a medal, I have to be okay with that. It is a weight off your shoulders if you know that you can do your best and, if it is not enough, there is nothing more you could have done.
“And look, I can’t control the rest of the field. It is a mixed bag, you would love to be able to decide it, but wouldn’t we all be rich if we knew who was going to win?”
