There isn’t anyone that would confuse Ciara Mageean with Conor McGregor, but she does share something of his winning attitude.
The UFC world champion famously said that Irish fighters weren’t "here to take part, we’re here to take over".
Mageean competes on Friday afternoon in the first round of the 1,500 metres in the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Belgrade. And as she says herself, she isn’t travelling simply to toe the line - she’s there for a medal.
“Ready for business,” insists the 24-year-old from Portaferry on the tip of the Ards Peninsula in County Down.
“If I toe the line, then I have to make sure that I do that vest justice. If I have to run myself into the ground, I’ll do it.
“When I step out onto the track in my Irish vest I’m not only running for me and for my coach and for my family, I am running for the whole nation and all the athletes that have worn that vest before and those in the future.
“If I entered a Championship and knew that I was only there to make up numbers, I wouldn’t be happy. I wouldn’t compete in athletics just to make up the numbers in the field - I go there to compete and to try to win medals for Ireland.
“It’s something I take very seriously and take a lot of pride in so that’s why I want to be ready.”
She illustrated just how seriously she takes it when she hurled herself over the line as her legs buckled at the European Cross County Championships in Italy before Christmas, having emptied the tank.
Mageean, who is waiting on her final physiotherapy results from UCD, only competed in her first major senior championships last year at the European outdoors, where she picked up a bronze medal.
She set herself a goal of reaching the Olympic final in Rio and went home disappointed following a semi-final exit, though she left Brazil happy in the knowledge that she had left everything on the track and having earned valuable big-time experience.
Mageean enjoyed a stellar junior career, destroying the field as a 15-year-old at the 2008 senior nationals, only for injury to intervene and rob her of two years racing in her twenties.
Her main focus this year, which she has decided to devote to athletics, having put off starting her physio career for the time-being, is the Athletics World Championships at London’s Olympic Stadium in August.
Mageean is aiming on making a final there too and once she’s there she believes any result in possible.
“It’s the same as the Olympics when I wanted to make the final - I want to be up there,” she said. “I want to race the final and once you’re in the final it can be anyone’s. Championships are not often won in the fastest of times.
“Once you’re in a final, you can compete and that’s my aim for Worlds.”
Along with the likes of fellow-UCD student Mark English and Limerick based Thomas Barr, Mageean is one of a new breed of athletes who chose to stay in Ireland rather than follow the well-worn scholarship trail to America.
The Jerry McKiernan-trained miler was courted by a number of big US colleges, but as a home bird she stayed local, confident in the knowledge that the resources for her to achieve her potential were in place.
However, it still remains a sore point with her that UCD’s running track was controversially dug up under the cover of night in late 2011 and to this day she and other Belfield-based runners find it difficult to get track time.
“Over the summer I was lucky enough to get on Tallaght's track - one of the clubs there was extremely generous to allow Jerry train our group of athletes during their club training time,” she explained.
“I spent the duration of the summer training in lane three and quite often when I was in Irishtown I’d be training in lane three as well because the two inside lanes were blocked off and wouldn’t be opened even with me pleading and begging ‘I’m going to the Olympics!’, but no - strict rules apply.
“Sometimes it can be a bit frustrating when you’re trying to do quality sessions and you’re training in lane three.”
As a Sport Ireland funded athlete, Mageean is entitled to use Morton Stadium in Santry, though that’s on the other side of Dublin and could involve a round-trip of three hours depending on the time of day.
“It would be nice to be able to walk onto a track and train, being a UCD student it would be fantastic to be able to walk onto a track just two minutes away from where I was living, but that luxury was taken away from us,” she said.
“Hopefully in the future UCD will invest in a track and their athletes and their student body. This is something I feel very strongly about and I think there should be a track in that university.”
