Last year only one medal came home around an Irish neck from the European Cross Country Championships in Antalya.
Nick Griggs was the sole focus of the camera in the Dublin airport arrivals hall.
This year, he hopes to dodge some of that attention - and have a few team-mates joining him for the usual Christmas-themed photographs.
Still, he remains Ireland's best chance of an individual medal at the championships.
Despite his youth, the 20-year-old has gathered five medals in the cross country event, and only on one occasion left with no individual medal, on his first attempt in Dublin in 2021, where he claimed team silver.
Griggs burst onto the athletics scene with a surprise gold over 3000m at the European Under-20 Championships in Tallinn in 2021, aged just 16, but since then he’s been chasing a return to the top of the podium.
Sunday in Lagoa could be his chance to hear the national anthem again, a full-circle moment that he craves after so many near misses.
There was the gutting last-minute stumble in 2022, the unbeatable opponents in 2023, and the heartbreak of 2024 when he was pipped for gold by Great Britain’s Will Barnicoat - who returns this year.
"I've had so many near misses where I've been there and thereabouts and a lot of the silvers… and they've all been like a second or less," Griggs told RTÉ Sport.
"So it's been close, but I've never actually quite managed to get on top of the podium again."
Nick Griggs is hoping he can convert his many silver medals into gold in the men's U23 race at the European Cross Country Championships on Sunday.
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) December 13, 2025
Read more here: https://t.co/lwuazsVClS pic.twitter.com/WjlZ1j3GGD
Griggs has come second in European age group championships on four occasions as an individual but is hoping this time he will finally get it done but admitted he knows it’s not a simple task.
"I really believe in myself this year and I think that all being well, I can go and get the win on Sunday," he said.
"It's always easier said than done. There's so many different things you have to do before you can actually cross that line and you're a European champion.
"It would be a really special feeling to be back on top of the podium. So all I can do, you know, is focus on myself and getting on the start line, completely ready to go mentally and physically and then just giving it my all."
Confidence may be higher than in previous years as he has finally rid himself of the national championships monkey that was firmly on his back.
For two years running, the national cross country event was a disaster for Griggs, stumbling and being unable to continue in 2023 and walking for a spell of the race in 2024.
This year he finished second in the senior men’s race right behind 5000m national record holder Brian Fay in horrendous conditions in Derry last month to secure his spot on the team for the U23 race in Lagoa.
The Tyrone native, ever the optimist, was still able to perform at the European competition after he faltered at nationals, but this year should be different.
He said: "I think usually I'm quite good at just putting it out in my head, regardless of how nationals go, the past two years obviously haven't been ideal but I was able to come back well and bounce back well after both of those for Euro cross anyway.
"I think I'm good at doing that anyway.
"Obviously you want to be coming in after running well at nationals. That's not something I've had in a few years. So I think that definitely is a big confidence boost."
Like many Irish athletes, his running talent was first spotted on a GAA pitch, where he played midfield and "bombed up and down." Lockdowns in 2020 shifted his focus to running, which was more accessible.
All of those that started out playing Gaelic games and moved on to success in other sports fancy themselves an inter-county player if they had stuck with it, but the Brackaville Owen Roes clubman knows the foolishness of riling the GAA corner.
He said: "You don't want to piss too many Gaelic players off by saying you would have easily made the county team. So I'll not answer that question."
He hasn’t annoyed them too much by leaving the sport, as Brackaville usually have watch parties every time he competes at an international championship.
While Griggs learned much from his time playing football one thing he didn’t inherit was the secrecy that tends to shroud particularly inter-county teams’ training.
You don’t need to hide up a tree at the Mary Peters Track in Belfast to find out what he is doing because he posts his training religiously on the platform Strava, believing there are "no secrets" in the sport.
"There's a lot of banter, I love it," he said.
"There are no secrets to training. People can hide their training and obviously different coaches have different methods.
"Most people at the top are just doing the same stuff and it's all about consistency. There's no one training session that you're going to see on my Strava and go, 'oh, that's why he runs this time or that's why he's won this medal’.
"People can go and look at my training and copy every single thing I do and it might not work for them.
"They're not going to run the same time just because that's just not, that's not how it works.
"Everyone's individual. Everyone's got their own ceiling. Everyone's got their own talent, everyone's got their own training that they can handle.
"I'm more than happy posting… I'm not big on Instagram and all that stuff. I just can't really be bothered with it. Strava is a bit more fun.
"There's no pressure at all. Just post your training on that and then have a bit of craic on it as well."
Three Irish athletes to watch in the European Cross Country Championships on Sunday 🇮🇪
— RTÉ Sport (@RTEsport) December 13, 2025
📺Watch the European Cross Country Championships live from Lagoa, Portugal on Sunday from 9am on @rteplayer and 10:45am on @rte2
Read more here: https://t.co/lwuazsV4wk pic.twitter.com/63KDPJbpGM
Consistency has been key to Griggs’ rise.
The only gap in his Strava profile over the last four or five years is the several weeks he spent in hospital in January for a rare illness called osteomyelitis - an infection in the bone.
It was apparent quite quickly to his followers on the popular app that something was very wrong when three days went by and no post arrived from Griggs. Messages started arriving on his phone but he ignored them.
He somewhat brushed off the impact of the illness, but it could well make an interesting part of his future autobiography should he ever get the opportunity to write one.
"You almost forget that this time, 10, 11 months ago, I was just sitting at my house and wasn't able to do anything," he said .
"My knee just couldn't even move and I was preparing to go into hospital to stay there for a few weeks. I think it's a good story to tell and it's part of the lore, I suppose, of your life and your career.
"It was a challenging period and I think I'm so far removed from it now and it just, it seems like it almost didn't happen.
"It was difficult, but it is just part of life, it's something that happens and there's nothing I really feel like I could have done to change it."
Sunday’s course will hopefully be easier to navigate than the mudfest at the national championships in Derry.
Portugal may seem like a safe bet in December, but more rain has fallen there in the last 24 hours than in Ireland.
As is typical of southern European cross country, expect sand, man-made jumps and not a lot of grass.
No course at the European Cross Country Championships is ever the same but Griggs has come through them all with some silverware despite being a track specialist.
"I feel like every year the course is so different," he added.
"It's very difficult to prepare for, but it's probably a little bit more run-of-the-mill for European cross country.
"I got a view of the overhead shot of it and it looks ridiculous from overhead, there's so many twists and turns… I don't think it'll be too dissimilar to Turkey last year.
"I'm traditionally a track athlete, so I think that's a course that should suit me well.
"All I can do is go out there and give them a best shot on the day and put my best foot forward and see what that leaves me at the end.
"Hopefully, as we've said, that'll be at the top of the podium."
Watch the European Cross Country Championships on Sunday from 10.45am on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player.
