After two years of hearing people talking behind her back about burn-out, Ciara Mageean is looking forward to pulling on an Irish vest again and getting back out on the track.
At just 15 years old, she destroyed an experienced field at the 2008 Irish Indoor Athletics Championships to announce her enormous talent and potential.
She continued to accelerate until 2014 when an ankle injury derailed her progress. She endured two years without setting foot on the track and all that time she heard what people were saying about her.
“People just used to say ‘that child is burnt out’ - I heard that a lot of the time,” recalls the 24-year-old from Portaferry, who is a 1,500m specialist.
“It was hard going watching my friends race and hearing mumbles as I passed from people saying ‘she used to be a good runner’.
“As a young person that’s heartbreaking. It was a tough road back, but it I am definitely physically stronger and I am definitely mentally stronger as a result of it.”
Mageean, who recently completed her physiotherapy finals in UCD, is literally back on track. Twice this year already she broke the Irish indoor mile record and she has Olympic qualification sewn up.
“It was a very long, tedious road back”
But it’s four years since she pulled on an Irish singlet so she simply cannot wait until the European Championships in Amsterdam in July, an event some athletes are giving a miss to in order to concentrate on the Olympic Games in Rio later in the summer.
“Myself and my coach Jerry (Kiernan) sat down and decided that there’s a month in between Euros and Rio so that’s plenty of time for me to go in, have a good bash at the Europeans and get a good taster of championship racing again,” said Mageean.
“It has been a long time coming for me to have an Irish vest on my back; it’s a long time coming for me after two years of injuries and a long road back.
“I think it will actually be good to have the Europeans behind me and to have a taster of rounds going through a championship in the lead-up to a Rio.”
Mageean was stopped in her tracks by an ankle injury that had been slowly building through her late teens and ended up leaving her so sore that she couldn’t even jog for a bus.
She eventually decided to have risky surgery to correct the problem and she’s grateful that the operation paid off.
“It was a very long, tedious road back,” she said. “Two years is a very long time for an athlete not to set foot on the track.
“Two years of being in the pool, being in the gym, being on a bike and a cross trainer; it’s hard when all you want to do is run and have the taste of competition.
“I missed the smell of the track as you walk towards it and the butterflies in your tummy - I didn’t have that for so long and it was tough.”
