Ciara Mageean celebrates with winner Laura Muir in the background. Morgan Treacy / INPHO
Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO
AN ELATED AND emotional Ciara Mageean has toasted her “absolutely fantastic” 1500m silver medal at the European Championships in Munich.
The Portaferry star won Ireland’s first track medal of the championships after a sensational run in which she clocked a season’s best time of 4:02.56, finishing just behind Great Britain superstar Laura Muir.
Mageean gave a fantastic post-race interview to David Gillick of RTÉ afterwards.
“I feel like I very rarely get emotional at athletics, but the year that I’ve had, I was going around there, seeing all the tricolours, and I’m feeling a bit emotional, it’s absolutely fantastic,” she began, her eyes glazed.
'I was going around, seeing all the tricolours and I'm feeling bit emotional' - @ciaramageean reacts after her silver medal in Munich, paying tribute to the Irish young guns, gives a shout-out to Portaferry and the late Jerry Kiernan #rtesport 📺 https://t.co/W98hM5ljMTpic.twitter.com/VuJlAh8dSQ
“I think you can see it on my face, the smile, even though I’m dying, out of breath and feeling like I’m going to throw up. The feeling of knowing I’m bringing a major medal back home to Ireland and I’ll see that tricolour raised, it’s everything I do this for.
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“This is what it’s all about. People ask you what you do it for, all the hard work and for me it’s getting to share that moment with everybody — everybody here in the stadium today and everybody back home. I know that everybody in Portaferry is going to be screaming at their scream, everybody across the length and breadth of Ireland will, like they do behind every Irish athlete here.
The team has done fantastic: the 4x400m women today, I watched them this morning, I looked at their strength and said, ‘That’s my ambition, to be out in the field doing that.’ I looked at our youngsters coming up, Isreal [Olatunde] and Rhasidat [Adeleke], absolutely phenomenal. My God, Irish athletics is in good hands, and me being one of the old ladies on the team, I said, ‘I need to lead by example and show them that we can win major medals on the major fields.’”
Mageean also paid tribute to her coaches and mentors through the years, with a special word for the late, great Jerry Kiernan.
Opening with a nod to new coach former GB star Helen Clitheroe, the 30-year-old smiled:
“She’ll be in tears. I’m so privileged to be working with Helen, an athlete that I looked up to and I still do. I raced Helen as a youngster and she was on the back end of my career.
“I also have to tip my hat at Steve Vernon, he was my coach right up to the last few months. Helen’s now my coach, she’s done a great job and I’m really looking forward to my future with her, but I have to stay thank you to Steve too. He’s now working with GB Athletics, they’ve got a good man there and I’m very grateful to him.
And as well, to all the coaches I’ve had — the late, great Jerry Kiernan, he’ll have the best seat in the house. My first coach Eamonn Christie and to everybody who has helped me along the way, thank you.
That was the perfect note to round the interview off on, but earlier, Mageean — in dreamland after a challenging season impacted by injury and Covid-19 after-effects — took Gillick through the race from pillar to post, with brilliant insight throughout.
She led for the majority, before long-time rival Muir kicked, and a battle for the ages unfolded from there.
Mageean celebrates with fans in the Olympic Stadium, Munich. Morgan Treacy / INPHO
Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO
“Everybody keeps saying they’re loving the new aggressive Ciara and sometimes I found myself at the front of the race by accident nearly — I tell myself to get out hard and not get boxed in, and there’s been a few cases where I’ve been like, ‘Right, I’m leading it’.
“D’you know what? I think I’ve been doing well that way. Maybe it’s a good new tactic.
“Racing the athletes out there, in particular Laura [Muir] and Sofia Ennaoui, I knew that it was going to be tough, they were the two people I really had in the back of my mind.
Laura used a similar tactic to Commonwealth Games, I thought that that was going to happen and in my warm-up, I even visualised her going from further out, which she did today. When it started happening, it was, ‘Right, do what you thought you would do on that visualisation of the 20-minute run of a warm-up.’ I said, ‘I’ll go with her,’ and I told myself, ‘You be her shadow,’ and that’s what I did.
“I tried my best to stick to her, Laura has gotten the better of me on a good few occasions now. My time will come. I wrote that in my training diary, my coach will say. ‘My time will come,’ I wrote it in. I’ll keep trying for that gold, but look, to bring two silver medals home this summer, one for Northern Ireland [Commonwealth Games] and one for Ireland, unbelievable.
“I didn’t give her an inch. I got on her shoulder as well, she just had the strength. Laura’s a 3:55 runner, I’m yet to break four minutes. She has just that bit more strength on me that means she gets to kick on when I might be feeling it in the legs.
I told myself I’d try. I’m glad I did, I did exactly what myself and my coach said we would. I stayed a hell of a lot closer to her than I did in the Commonwealth Games.”
Mageean also referenced a conversation with Phil Healy’s coach, Shane McCormack, in which she revealed she’s “tempted to work with a sprints coach next year so I hold my form down the home straight”.
“I knew Ennaoui would finish strong and I tried to keep that lead on her,” she added.
That, Ciara Mageean did, delivering another stunning silver medal after the run of her life.
The medal presentation will be shown in the coming minutes on RTÉ 2.
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'I'll keep trying for that gold, but to bring two silver medals home this summer, unbelievable'
AN ELATED AND emotional Ciara Mageean has toasted her “absolutely fantastic” 1500m silver medal at the European Championships in Munich.
The Portaferry star won Ireland’s first track medal of the championships after a sensational run in which she clocked a season’s best time of 4:02.56, finishing just behind Great Britain superstar Laura Muir.
Mageean gave a fantastic post-race interview to David Gillick of RTÉ afterwards.
“I feel like I very rarely get emotional at athletics, but the year that I’ve had, I was going around there, seeing all the tricolours, and I’m feeling a bit emotional, it’s absolutely fantastic,” she began, her eyes glazed.
“I think you can see it on my face, the smile, even though I’m dying, out of breath and feeling like I’m going to throw up. The feeling of knowing I’m bringing a major medal back home to Ireland and I’ll see that tricolour raised, it’s everything I do this for.
“This is what it’s all about. People ask you what you do it for, all the hard work and for me it’s getting to share that moment with everybody — everybody here in the stadium today and everybody back home. I know that everybody in Portaferry is going to be screaming at their scream, everybody across the length and breadth of Ireland will, like they do behind every Irish athlete here.
Mageean also paid tribute to her coaches and mentors through the years, with a special word for the late, great Jerry Kiernan.
Opening with a nod to new coach former GB star Helen Clitheroe, the 30-year-old smiled:
“She’ll be in tears. I’m so privileged to be working with Helen, an athlete that I looked up to and I still do. I raced Helen as a youngster and she was on the back end of my career.
“I also have to tip my hat at Steve Vernon, he was my coach right up to the last few months. Helen’s now my coach, she’s done a great job and I’m really looking forward to my future with her, but I have to stay thank you to Steve too. He’s now working with GB Athletics, they’ve got a good man there and I’m very grateful to him.
That was the perfect note to round the interview off on, but earlier, Mageean — in dreamland after a challenging season impacted by injury and Covid-19 after-effects — took Gillick through the race from pillar to post, with brilliant insight throughout.
She led for the majority, before long-time rival Muir kicked, and a battle for the ages unfolded from there.
“Everybody keeps saying they’re loving the new aggressive Ciara and sometimes I found myself at the front of the race by accident nearly — I tell myself to get out hard and not get boxed in, and there’s been a few cases where I’ve been like, ‘Right, I’m leading it’.
“D’you know what? I think I’ve been doing well that way. Maybe it’s a good new tactic.
“Racing the athletes out there, in particular Laura [Muir] and Sofia Ennaoui, I knew that it was going to be tough, they were the two people I really had in the back of my mind.
“I tried my best to stick to her, Laura has gotten the better of me on a good few occasions now. My time will come. I wrote that in my training diary, my coach will say. ‘My time will come,’ I wrote it in. I’ll keep trying for that gold, but look, to bring two silver medals home this summer, one for Northern Ireland [Commonwealth Games] and one for Ireland, unbelievable.
“I didn’t give her an inch. I got on her shoulder as well, she just had the strength. Laura’s a 3:55 runner, I’m yet to break four minutes. She has just that bit more strength on me that means she gets to kick on when I might be feeling it in the legs.
Mageean also referenced a conversation with Phil Healy’s coach, Shane McCormack, in which she revealed she’s “tempted to work with a sprints coach next year so I hold my form down the home straight”.
“I knew Ennaoui would finish strong and I tried to keep that lead on her,” she added.
That, Ciara Mageean did, delivering another stunning silver medal after the run of her life.
The medal presentation will be shown in the coming minutes on RTÉ 2.
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Ciara Mageean