Swimming is probably the loneliest sport
Swimmers plough their way up and down the pool, training endlessly and monotonously at times in a sport that only really comes into public view every four years at the Olympic Games
Mark Spitz, Michael Phelps, perhaps Kristin Otto and Janet Evans, are amongst a handful of swimmers that have made it into the public domain.
But how about American Katie Ledecky, five-time Olympic champion and 15 times a world champion?
Anyone?
How about Britain's Adam Peaty? No? Olympic gold medallist. Fastest breaststroker in the world at the moment.
Does that name ring a bell? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
If you struggle to put a name on international swimmers, what about Irish ones.
Gary O’Toole, Andrew Bree, Shane Ryan, Michelle Smith?
Yep everyone knows Michelle, for different reasons perhaps
What about Mona McSharry, Danielle Hill, Darragh Greene or maybe even Brendan Hyland, the 25-year-old from Tallaght, whose bid to make the Irish Olympic swim team has been put on hold due to Covid-19?
No?
They would certainly like you to know who they are.
The Swim Ireland Olympic squad are a tight knit community.
The majority were, up until recently, training at the National Aquatic Centre (NAC) in Dublin, including butterfly specialist Hyland as they looked forward to the Irish Open meet at the NAC at the beginning of April, their last chance to make the plane for Tokyo.
Then the coronavirus intervened.
A warm-up trip to a meet in Edinburgh in March was called at the last moment, before. Then the NAC closed down, leaving the squad and Hyland with no pool to train in, but the Irish Open was also cancelled. Eventually the Tokyo Olympics were postponed for 12 months
It left Hyland high and dry, like the whole world, locked down until the crisis passes and now having to refocus his goal until the summer of 2021 and the rescheduled games.
"It can wait, "said Hyland.
"There are more pressing issues at the moment."
Darragh Greene, was the only Irish swimmer to have posted an Olympic qualifying time, in the 100-metre breastroke, while Shane Ryan, the former US Olympic squad member whose father hails from Portarlington, and who was a Rio Olympic semi-finalist in 2016, was expected to be on the plane to Japan in the men backstroke events.
McSharry too, the former world junior champion and European bronze medallist, was also expected to dip under the Olympic qualifying time at the NAC Irish Open trials.
That will have to wait for another day.
"We were actually in the airport heading for the Edinburgh International swim meet which would have been three weeks out from the Irish Open, when the call came through that the trip was cancelled," added Hyland.
"We went back to the NAC to train. It was closed to the public, but we were still able to get into the pool.
"We were there about to do a session when we were told the trials were cancelled with the Olympics postponed.
"My mood dropped and I was fairly gutted, but I got over it. There are people with worse problems.
"I got sick in January after a training camp in Tenerife and I lost about six kilos in weight, but I had battled back and I was ready for the trials.
"So now I’m looking at in a way that when it happens, it happens.
Hyland was born into a sporting family, mostly boxing.
His father Paul boxed, but it was the exploits in the ring of his three cousins Paulie, Eddie and Patrick 'Pajo’ Hyland that made the family name.
All three were Irish title winners, while Pajo went on to fight for world titles, retiring at the age of 33 having fought for the WBC featherweight title against the American Gary Russell, losing out in a second round knockout in 2016.
"I could have been a boxer, but Mam had other ideas and swimming has been my sport since I learned to swim at the age of three"
"I started to win medals at Irish age groups when I was 10 but when I was in my early teens I didn’t really grow much
"That changed in 2010 when I started training at the NAC with coach Paul Donovan and my times for the 200 butterfly (Hyland’s favoured event) began to drop.
"By the time of the 2014 European Championships in Berlin, I was down below two minutes for the event and I swam with Paul up until 2017 when he left and John Rudd (Swim Ireland's high performance coach) took over.
"So now in a short space of time I’ve gone from an also ran to be a couple of seconds off making the Olympics. Paul helped me make realities out of goals and dreams.
"He was absolutely genuine."
Hyland, however, didn’t make the Rio Olympics in 2016 and it was a frustrating time for the Tallaght native as his confidence faltered.
That was until Scotland’s Ben Higson took over as national coach and John Rudd began to assemble a squad for Tokyo, which included Hyland.
"I was on such a hot streak time wise, it all came so fast and every three months I was dropping stupid times in every race,
"But that stopped happening as I reached a plateau. I was below two minutes (for the 200 butterfly) when I finished fifth at the 2012 Junior Europeans in Belgium, but the times just wouldn’t come down as I would have liked after that.
"It was hard after Paul left and I did a bit of work with Dave Malone (the Irish Paralympic performance director and gold medallist) and he was unbelievable and after two years I finally took a second off my personal best (PB)"
"Ben Higson then took over in September 2017. He was a coach I knew that had taken juniors onto world senior competitions and since he has been here I’ve done PB after PB"
Hyland showed his much improved form in 2019 at the world championships in Gwangju in South Korea recording a time of 1:56:55 in the 200 metre butterfly semi-finals just 7-hundredths of a second outside the Tokyo Olympics qualifying time.
With that confidence in his back pocket and a couple of decent swims at the European Short Course (25 metre pool) championships last December, the Tallaght native was primed and ready to make the 2020 Olympics
Sadly, it’s not to be and like the rest of Ireland’s professional athletes he has had to temper his training to working out at home with no pool available.
"The Irish coaches have been on every three or four afternoons a week. We do a group work out and are given a recommended training plan"
"I’ve been running and working on the stationary bike and dad found an old workout bench in the attic which I’m using now"
"There is a competitiveness in the squad and it pushes us to be better"
"We just have to keep active and be as happy as we can be and just wait it out. Hopefully the smart people can work out some kind of vaccine"
Hyland graduated from DCU in Accounting and Finance last September and has thoughts about doing his masters in same as he looks beyond a career in swimming.
"I always thought that maybe 2020 would be my last year in the sport and I want to move on with other stuff"
"But now it’s been pushed out for another year and come next year I feel I can do something special"
There are uncertain times ahead for all of Ireland’s athletes.
Hyland’s Olympic hopes and dreams will hopefully be realised in 2021.
