Success on the Shannon- Athlone

As you may know, wannabe Ironman athletes are always very uptight and apprehensive a few weeks before a race and sometimes it’s a very good idea to be distracted from your training..... It was therefore my privilege and pleasure to be asked to attend the biggest Triathlon ever seen in Ireland. Last Saturday I was in Athlone on the Shannon between Munster and Leinster. The event is called Tri-Athlone and four years ago it had around 400 participants. This year it had 2,400 in the age group races for the Irish Sprint Title as well Olympic Race and also the Irish Army Championships. It also featured the ITU European Cup Race and the venue has already been selected to host the 2010 European Championships.

It is no wonder that the entire week end is called a TriFest. I wasn’t however in a Festival frame of mind by the time I had battled my way down on Friday taking over 4 ½ hours for the 150 mile journey. Everybody who had a motorised method of transport appeared to be on the same road as myself. I eventually staggered into a jam packed heaving Athlone(there were 12,000 visitors in the town for the week end of Triathlon activities – can you imagine how many tourist dollars that brings to the region!) and persuaded the girl at the desk to let me into the sacrosanct area otherwise known as “the hotel car park”. The first of many gigs over the week end had already started in a specially erected marquee while 5 minutes later I was at the elite athletes briefing where the ITU Technical Delegate told them in no uncertain terms what was expected of them the next day.

The field was a mixture of Spanish, French, Australian, Austrian, Cypriot, Dutch Belgian, GBR etc. and I have seen more fat on a butcher’s dog. If the athletes had turned sideways I am sure they would have disappeared. They redefine the word gaunt but they would be ready to rumble in the morning.

The first person I bumped into, irony of ironies when I was illegally parked 30 mins. before outside the hotel was my cousin Martin Bodie originally from Coleraine, now Manchester. I hadn’t see Martin for ten years until last November at a Triathlon Road Show in London now Athlone – Martin we really should meet up somewhere normal like Limavady or Coleraine ok?”

Martin and I shared some food and a pint while looking forward to the morning. Martin is Manager of Sports Tours International and had some clients over to do the race and to check it out for next year’s big event. It would have been foolish of him not to do the race himself! Incidentally if you want to do next year’s race when they expect 5,000 age groupers you better book accommodation now as a bed in Athlone next July is going to be as rare as a trophy in the Manchester City Committee room.

I tossed and turned for a few hours but at 8.00 a.m. I was on the banks of Ireland’s largest river. I stood on a specially constructed beautiful blue pontoon which jutted 75 metres from the bank into the river. In front of me I had about 2,000 spectators and 1,000 wet suit clad athletes (who were getting ready for the first of 4 or 5 waves of 200 swimmers heats). I had a microphone in my hand and I felt as lucky as a lotto ticket winner. My new best friend Ken had me wired for sound and we were ramped and amped and ready to rock and roll. All I had to do was talk about the sport I love passionately for the next 12 hours – what could be easier?

The race organiser had to change the swim start and move it 750 metres up stream as the current in the river was about 5 or 6 metres per second – poor swimmers like me would not actually be able to swim upstream. We would simply float down stream like a cork.

Every wave had a different coloured swim cap to give our time keepers a vague idea of who was meant to be where and at what time. In addition every athlete had a champion timing chip on their left ankle which would record their swim time, their transition time, their bike time, their run time and overall finish time – not bad for a device which weighs about 50 grams. Every competitor was also wearing a black wet suit and identical coloured swim hat – a commentator’s nightmare!

We got the crowd activated and animated and the competitors received huge rounds of applause. For all of them this was the biggest stage in which they had ever competed and they were loving it. Some of them would talk to me as they ran down the pontoon while trying to get rid of their wet suits. Some of them however were in the zone and didn’t want to talk to me. The transition area was a thing of beauty. It was in the middle of Athlone Army Barracks. I had checked it out the night before and it was a wonderful sight for me as a race organiser to see transition racks laid out for nearly 2,500 bikes – and knowing I wasn’t responsible for any of it!

One of the local organisers, Derek Nugent, who is a soldier had persuaded his superiors that it really was a good idea for the parade ground to be turned into a Triathlon junkies dream and the whole place looked magnificent. To me this was like Wimbledon, Croke Park and Wembley. At last our sport was receiving the stage it so richly deserved. All we needed later in the day after the age group races was for some local success in the elite races.

In the past we have been the most accommodating and gracious of hosts. We put on great races, we give free entries to International athletes, we pick them up from the airport, give them free hotel rooms and invite them to race us, then they proceed to stuff our athletes, they take the prize money and they go straight to the airport on their way home. So could we do anything about it this year? Well hopes were high for our latest star in the making i.e. Aileen Morrison from Derry. She has a full time coach, she trains 35 hours a week and she lives the life of an ascetic monk,
(sorry, professional triathlete). In the men’s race we had my young friend Gavin Noble from Enniskillen (ironically which is now the Headquarters of Waterways Ireland, one of the race’s main sponsors) now based in Stirling Scotland as we still don’t have a 50 metre pool here). Gavin won this race in 2006 and 2007 but was beaten by two French guys last year who worked him over on the bike. Also in the race we had a very talented mix of Spanish and Aussies and we had David Graham the Irish Duathlon Champion who was stepping up to the mark and was taking part in his first pro race.

At 2.55 p.m. after I did a quick live radio interview for Midlands 103 FM (who were supporting the TriFest all week end and who were a superb co-sponsor). I called forward the number one ranked athlete in the field i.e. Aileen, who had placed 13th in the European Championships in Holland two weeks previously, 25th in the ITU World Cup race in South Korea and 24th in the World Cup race on the steps of the White House in downtown Washington DC – not a bad set of results for a girl whose parents still had never seen her race until last Saturday! Well Mr. & Mrs Morrison were to be very proud of their young green clad girl who was first out of the water and who worked in a pack of three on the bike with an Australian athlete and a French athlete. Aileen hit the front at the start of the run but there was something awfully efficient about the little Australian dynamo, Felicity Sheedy- Ryan, who soon passed Aileen and who stayed a tantalising 100 metres ahead of her for the rest of the race. I could see from the effort on Aileen’s face that she was on the absolute rivet; she had given it 100%. She finished with a silver medal and should be very pleased with her effort. Aileen was allowed 24 hours off training by her coach and on Monday went off to High altitude in St. Moritz before coming down to sea level for the ITU cup race in London on the 15th August before going to the World Championships in Brisbane on the gold coast.

She is sure clocking up lots of air miles –all part of the far from glamorous life of an elite triahtlete for whom travel is not a pleasure just a pain (just ask our own Anne Paul who has travelled extensively all over the world, lugging a bike box that is practically bigger than her!).

The race finished in the middle of the town so I then dashed the 500 metres back to the pontoon with my trusty Lieutenant Ken whose job was to keep me on air, sane and upright for 12 hours. Ten minutes later Ken put the classical fanfare intro on over the loud speakers, the athletes were called onto the pontoon, the starters flags were raised, the technical delegate from Spain called them to their marks, and and raised the horn, said “Ready.... Go!” and 38 swimmers dived into the Shannon to start their 2 hour race. Unfortunately our Gavin thought the start procedure was the same for an ITU World Cup race and he went before the B of the Bang and was therefore held after the swim in transition one for a penalty of 15 secs. Meanwhile the two French guys who finished 1 – 2 last year went off the front and the pack behind seemed strangely lethargic. We did have the pleasure however during the race of the athletes clambering onto the pontoon and then doing a fantastic swallow dive back into the Shannon and the crowd lapped it up.

I had the joy of interviewing lots of people during the day including two army Commandants, coaches, Mary O’Rourke TD (from one of the Ireland’s most famous political families) but my good friend Richard Archibald, the double Olympian, didn’t want to talk to me and told me to go and interview somebody important! Richard there weren’t many double Olympians in the audience!

Meanwhile in the bike section something strange was happened. An unheralded Irish athlete called Brian Keane from Cork rode from the back (as he wasn’t a great swimmer) passed one pack, went straight off the front of it, up to the main peloton, had a quick word with Gavin and then dragged the main pack up to the French two some who looked at him as if he had an engine on his bike, Brian then proceeded to ride off the front of this pack with only one Austrian keeping him company. Apparently Brian was a part of the Sean Kelly cycling Academy – but could he stay out there? Meanwhile Gavin, who unlike the rest of us knew what was going on, sat at the front of the peloton covering any brakes and discouraging anyone from going to chase down the shooting star up the road. I got one of the marshals to take a time gap and it just proceeded to grow and grow until he came back into Transition 2 with a 90 second lead but would it be enough? By this stage the crowd of thousands on the Bridge and in front of the Castle and lining Grace Road, were on tenter hooks. Could we really be about to leave behind a history of mediocrity and sock it to the rest of the world here us on home soil and get on top of the podium? Brian took off at the start of the 10K as if it was only 100 metres, my heart wanted him to win but my head said he would blow up and be passed by about 30 athletes who had paced their race better. Well if I was to wait for Cork’s latest super star to blow up I would still be waiting! The commentator was moved to shout out at the crowd “Where were you when the Berlin Wall came down? Where were you when Ray Houghton’s goal beat Italy in World Cup ’92? Where were you when history was made when Brian Keane hammered the rest of a stellar field and won an ITU European Cup race in Athlone?” I am surprised you couldn’t hear the roars of the crowd up in the North West. Brian Keane was lifted by the crowd and seemed to be floating on air as he left the rest of the field for dead. Meanwhile Gavin whose tactics had done so much to lay down the foundation stone of Brian’s victory was engaged in a mortal struggle with three Spanish and one French athlete and was to lose out on a podium place by a matter of a few painful – and expensive - seconds.

Ken and I raced up to the finish line and I exhorted the crowd to lean over the railings and to use their hands to get the equivalent of a drum roll going for our victor. When I had reminded them Cork had produced one super star Roy Keane and now we had another they broke into a chant of “Kean-O, Kean-O......”

I have been so lucky in my life to have been present at a lot of top class sporting events but this atmosphere, this energy, this love between crowd and athlete was just.... awesome. The hairs on the back of ones neck were up and we brought the house down. I had earlier allowed RTE do the first interviews with the first three women but I couldn’t hold myself back this time so I brought Brian back down the finish funnel back down to his delirious adoring public – if you could bottle that feeling and sell it you would be a very wealthy entrepreneur.

Brian was really cool and calm and confident and far from overawed by the whole occasion. This really impressed me, he believes he can actually get better, he is 28 and only started serious training last October – Mamma Mia there is hope for the rest of us yet!

Later I interviewed Chris Jones the Triathlon Ireland high performance coach who admitted that he suspected this might happen. Now Brian, you are a marked man and the rest of the Triathlon world know about you. You might need different tactics next time.

We then had the platform party, the fanfare, the procession, the flowers, the medals the anthems, the champagne. It was just a great finale to a great week end. Me and my team Ken Paul, and Thomas all embraced and I got the crowd to thank Hugh McAtamney Race Director, Liam Heavin, Chairman Waterways Triathlon and John Casey Water Safety Leader and also Derek Nugent, they linked arms and they took the applause they so richly deserved. I of course missed the ultimate trick I should have introduced them as the “FAB FOUR”. We all looked and felt absolutely shattered and shell shocked. I could at least stumble back to the hotel for a shower and a beer and some hot food, the other guys had to go and get the course taken down. Two hours later we were all in the heaving Bar and the sports news came on the TV. We looked up at the screen, first there was the Golf, from the Open, then the Tour de France, then – Tri-Athlone!

We saw Aileen on the podium in 2nd place, then they showed Brian crossing the line to win the whole event. We raised our pints and fists in the air and roared as one, in unison. Our sport was for once out of the back waters and onto the back pages – now all we have to do is keep it there.