An Irish Runner Writes

at

Ciaran

[Cork-born European Indoor 3,000m Bronze medallist Ciaran Ó Lionáird, 25, from Cork]

Ciaran Ó Lionáird writes:

“On my layover in JFK [to a training camp in Florida], I got a bit busy on Twitter in response to a feature article on fellow Irish athlete Colin Griffin in the Irish Examiner [on Saturday]. Let me preface this by saying I have a lot of respect for Colin. Anybody who knows him will agree he’s a guy who has the intellect and reasoning ability to form thoughtful and coherent dialogue relative to his sport and also think on a relative scale about the career of an athlete and what comes afterward.

I spoke out in response to the article as I felt the presence of a recurring theme in features on Irish athletes recently. Granted, there have been positive news stories too and in my haste in getting a message into 140 characters, I perhaps over-generalised in my criticism of the media for bringing a negative agenda into Irish athlete interviews. Now, with the space of this medium, I can hopefully expand a little on my thoughts and explain why I feel the way I do on this.

I am totally in favor of athletes speaking out against what they perceive as unjust. Funding and grants have always been a contentious issue as they form the backbone of an athletes preparation. Cuts to funding can leave an athlete scrambling to re-budget and the year-to-year changes make it difficult to follow-through on the 3-4 year plans necessary to build the continuity and consistency necessary to perform at a World level.

I feel that journalists sometimes play on the emotions of the athletes in order to get a quick and easy jab in at Irish Athletics. Such an act in isolation may not really do a whole deal but when it occurs again and again, it portrays the athletes as moaners and presents them as fighting not just against the system but against each other too. That certainly isn’t the case in real life but the general non-athletics fan can pick up a paper and take a glance and think “ok here we go again”.

“For the journos, it’s an easy sell. For athletes, I feel that it weakens our position in the long term as it prevents us from coming together and forming a consistent message to bring to AAI [Athletics Association of Ireland] with our concerns. Isolated attacks and digs on Twitter do not help our cause I believe.

“As an example, last year, when dealing with my Achilles injury, I became increasingly frustrated with the reluctance of the Irish Institute of Sport to push on with a consult on my tendon. It cost me valuable weeks that eventually led to me missing outdoors.

Athletics Ireland shared my frustration and I spoke to a journalist along with my physio who has been on numerous Olympic medical teams. We expressed our frustration that the IIS weren’t even communicating with AAI and I was being left in limbo, even though in fairness as the time our HP director was communicating with me daily and trying to sort it out.

On the phone, we both said that such a breakdown in dialogue would not occur elsewhere and having come from a seamless collegiate system communication wise, it was hard to deal with and frustrating. There was no negative mention of AAI, in fact my only condition on doing the interview was that my gratitude to AAI for supporting me be conveyed. It wasn’t, and the journalist alluded to a notion that I would be willing to switch nationality in light of this.

What a ridiculous idea. I’m Irish and love my country. All I wanted to do was truthfully illustrate my frustration at a bureaucratic communication breakdown that impacted me very negatively. It was a very specific issue. Instead, the journo decided to just run it as me being completely fed up with Irish athletics and the whole system and wanting out. Obviously, such sensationalism sells, but it did nothing to help me. In fact, it caused me some distress trying to explain it to those in AAI who really had supported me. I felt used and betrayed and it is still a sore point.

I hope that as someone who is getting their grant cut this year, even in spite of winning a Euro Medal last year, I can write this argument from the point of view of someone who isn’t just pampered within the system. I have frustrations. I have grievances. But right now my goal is to speak with the relevant parties and my fellow athletes, get a consistent message down on what we feel needs changing and present it through an appropriate medium. I don’t intend giving a playdough ball of frustration to a journalist so they can take it and make it into whatever the hell they want. We need better, we deserve better.

Lastly, a thank you to the journalists out there who do not take advantage of athletes in this way. I hope that in this training camp I get to a fitness point that allows me to bring more positive stories to cover {on his blog below}, along with a great crop of young, talented Irish athletes and some old race-walking guy from Douglas who’s supposedly alright too. I apologise for generalisations. This explanation may not cover all bases, but hopefully it’s an improvement.

Ciaran Ó Lionáird

Read Ciaran’s blog  here.

Pic: RTÉ

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