THE ONLY PLACE to start is with the leg-break. Ben Fletcher was in Israel, fretting about ranking points and Olympic qualification before his thoughts turned to something infinitely more serious.
Judo players have suffered all kinds of terrible injuries on a mat. But this one – the break of the tibia and fibula bones in his right leg – resulted in the match photographer having to lower his camera and look away.
“Lying there (on the mat), I knew immediately something terribly serious had happened,” says Fletcher, who’ll compete for Ireland in these Games. “I lifted my leg up and part of it was just hanging loose – a disgusting sight. All sorts of things go through your head at moments like that.
“Self-preservation kicks in. There and then I wasn’t thinking, ‘right this is my Olympic Games over’. Instead I was wondering if I would be able to walk again. My leg was hanging off; I was in agony.”
He was also in luck. The event doctor made smart, quick decisions, getting the leg into a cast, talking to Fletcher straightaway about a recovery timetable.
He wasn’t to know it but he’d a captive audience. What Brian Cody is to hurlers, Leonardo Da Vinci to painting ceilings, Ben Fletcher is to rehab. Even Amy Winehouse didn’t have a patch on this guy.
Injuries are things he’s well used to overcoming. So this thing, five months out from the Olympics, wasn’t going to stop him.
Wishing @bf130392 a happy birthday. pic.twitter.com/Qk6Q4WJBHk
— Irish_Judo (@IrishJudo) March 13, 2021
The leg was broken on the Saturday, the flight home was on a Sunday, the operation to repair it on the Tuesday. By May he was back in full training. “No one has ever made it back quicker than you,” his surgeon told him.
Then again, no one ever had as much at stake.
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Alice-Mary Keating was a middle child, seven-years-old when she swapped life in Bruff, County Limerick for Reading. Everything she’d known, the fields, the streets, the friends, the school, she had to leave behind. We can only imagine the inner turmoil of a child, the train ride as she held onto her belongings and her father’s hand, the boat to Hollyhead, the long journey south, the unfamiliar accents.
She’d adapt. Alice-Mary Keating would grow up, marry and become Alice-Mary Fletcher. Children came along. They’d turn out to be world class at Judo, a sport she knew little or nothing about but would grow to love as first Megan and then Ben won medals at world junior championships and became Olympians.
Then, in 2017, she and her son, Ben, had a chat in the front room, which ended up being more of confession. “I want to switch to Ireland,” the then 25-year-old son said. “And I was wondering how you’d feel about that?”
There were tears of pride. “I’ve had this drive to do this, to represent Ireland, to represent mum and my family,” Fletcher says.
Suddenly in February it looked like it had been taken away from him.
“There was never going to be any guarantee I would get back from the injury so I kind of made a pact to myself, a little internal conversation. I knew I would be content if I gave my best. Nobody expected me to be here. Deep down, I really didn’t know if I’d make it.”
It was only 11 days ago when he was told he would. Four days later he was on a flight from Dublin to Tokyo, Megan – his sister, who also switched from Team GB to Ireland and will appear in these Games – was by his side.
🌟 It wasn’t the podium finish that I had hoped for, but I can tell you it was still a very special day 🌟 5th place at the World Championships 🌟 pic.twitter.com/kHubcTnraz
— Megan Fletcher (@Megan_Fletcher1) June 10, 2021
“It has been a whirlwind; I’m a little in disbelief that we have made it. But there is also a feeling a job is still to be done. I am here to compete, not just to turn up and tick a box. I’m proud, you know.”
He delves deeper into what makes him that way. First, there’s the mental effort that goes into ‘getting through a testing situation like that, coming out the other side’.
He pauses. We’re chatting by zoom. He’s in the reception area of a Japanese hotel, four hours from Tokyo. People pass by. He says a quick hello, flashes a smile and then his face instantly intensifies as he considers everything that has gone into him being here.
“You break your leg, genuinely your thoughts are: ‘Will I walk again? Will it be functional again?’ I didn’t need to do this. But I managed it. A lot has happened in my life in the last five years. For this to be the final hurdle in it all, I’m proud of myself, proud to have fought back, proud to be at an Olympic Games again, it is a big honour.”
Not just for him. A year ago he spoke about how if he got to the Games with Megan, and managed to do so in Irish colours, his ‘mum would be absolutely made up’.
It’s the subject he speaks most animatedly about. He doesn’t deliberate over these words. There is a genuine sincerity to them.
“It is difficult explaining identity sometimes. I grew up in England, lived in England a lot of my life, went to Rio for Team GB but I do feel Irish.
“For some people that may not mean anything but for me it does. It gives me a lot of pride and that is all that matters for me, my family; to represent Ireland and all those family members back home.”
The hardest part is still to come, though. He and Megan are close, separated by two years in age but also a day’s competition at these Games.
Ben Fletcher / Twitter
Ben Fletcher / Twitter / Twitter
She is in action 24 hours before Ben and that presents a problem. He’ll travel across for her opening bout but he can’t stay there for the remainder of the event. There will be a few ounces still to shed prior to his weigh-in. Then there is the mental preparation every athlete has to undertake. It’s something he is used to, Megan’s fights regularly scheduled the day before his.
“I have to block it out, as hard as that is, I have got to focus on myself and I know that is very selfish and while it is not what I would like to do, I have to. I wish I could be there, emotionally invested and everything that comes with that but I am here for my own reasons as well.
“I know how that sounds. But I have got to hold my end of the bargain and do what I can to be in the best shape mentally and physically. I’d love to be there all day and watch but spending a day in a stadium will not be beneficial to my performance.”
How he’ll perform remains an unknown. This, after all, is his first tournament since the leg break and while he has been training well, surpassing his target scores in the gym, he knows more than anyone that the gym and the arena are oceans apart. “Judo, a lot of it is feel,” he says. “I’m happy with how I’m training but ultimately I don’t know (how I will perform). It’s a little bit of wait-and-see although in a sense it’s liberating, the injury. No one expects anything of me. No one even expected me to make it. So, I’m going to have a go. In the last five years, I’ve done things I never thought I’d be able to.” That includes twice being a winner on the grand prix circuit, as well as being a silver medallist and two-time bronze winner at those events.
Although ranked 16th, he has been as high as sixth, and has beaten everyone in the world’s top ten. His biggest victory, though, is getting here and while it just seems wrong that after all that sacrifice, all that pain, all that self-denial, his Olympics could finish after one fight, he knows it’s worth it.
For this isn’t just about the medals. This is personal.