GRETA STREIMIKYTE knows all about the long road, and now, after years of Paralympic heartache, she’s finally got the global title to show for it.

She wouldn’t change anything about how she got there.

The 30-year-old middle-distance athlete has enjoyed medal success at European level and has spent her career hovering just outside Paralympic podium territory.

Fourth in Rio. Fifth in Tokyo. Fourth again in Paris last summer after an injury-hit lead-in. Always close but always just missing out.

Her response was to come back stronger, to strive constantly to be faster and to be better in race scenarios.

She followed a debut European bronze in 2016 — the year after she became an Irish citizen — by striking gold in 2018 and 2021. Those milestones served to remind her that she could make the breakthrough at the highest level.

Then came New Delhi on 28 September, when everything finally clicked. Streimikyte bossed the T13 1500m final from the gun and never let up.

She had the ambition to race from the front, and while a new European record didn’t materialise, finishing ahead of nearest rival Izaskun Oses Ayucar of Spain by over 10 seconds was hugely satisfying.

Her win in India came in a time of 4:39.62, but the execution of the race plan mattered more. “The plan was there and you just try to execute it as best you can,” she reflected. “If you execute, there’s a big chance you get the result you want — not guaranteed, but a chance.

“I told myself, ‘just hit it hard’. I do that a lot in championships; it works for me. From the gun to the tape — that’s your job.”

What hit her hardest came afterwards, when Amhrán na bhFiann was played at the medal ceremony.

“The reality is, why do we want to win? It’s because the national anthem only plays if you win. I had that with my European golds, and it was the same in India. I hadn’t had that feeling in a long time,” she remarked.

The setbacks, she believes, ultimately made her a more resilient athlete. “I’m happy with the timing,” she stressed. “It happened when it was meant to. If you keep showing up, eventually the opportunity presents itself.”

And, thinking back on the weight of all those near misses, Streimikyte couldn’t help but laugh.

“Oh yeah, I cry every time,” she confessed. “Paris was actually the time I cried the least — I was probably getting used to it. It was a tough year behind the scenes. People don’t see that part.”

Streimikyte was 15 when she moved to Dublin from Lithuania with her family in 2010. She became an Irish citizen five years later, then quickly made her mark at European level, but her finishes in the Paralympics left her striving for more.

“It’s not an easy place to be,” she admitted. “When you’re in the same position for eight years, you ask yourself, ‘Will I ever get there?’

“But the older you get, the more you understand that the journey matters. People focus on medals, but I wouldn’t change anything. If success comes too easily, it doesn’t carry the same weight. The setbacks make it sweeter.”

Visually impaired — she has lived with retinopathy since birth — Streimikyte was speaking ahead of the Allianz NextGen event on Sunday, 30 November at the National Indoor Arena in Abbotstown.

NextGen is the pathway that has already produced the likes of Paralympic bronze medallist Niamh McCarthy, Jordan Lee, Katie O’Brien and Tiarnan O’Donnell.

The gold medal already in her rear mirror, Streimikyte’s ambition beyond the next Europeans is to start focusing on LA 2028.

She balances training with two days a week working in leveraged finance at AIB, and returned to the track later than most of her teammates after a nine-day trip around India with teammate and fellow world champion Orla Comerford — including a bucket list stop at the Taj Mahal.

But the Indian adventure is now firmly filed away in the memory bank. “I feel like the gold medal moment has passed,” she said. “It was amazing, but now it feels like a long time ago. Still, it took me a while to get there, and I’ll always have it.

“But the journey doesn’t end there. You’re still trying to improve and get faster. I don’t see it as a boost — more a reminder of what’s possible.

“Time doesn’t stand still. Athletes improve, new people come in. Just because I won gold now doesn’t mean I’ll win it again. It doesn’t work like that.

“Paul Brady is my coach now, he’s great and has a lot of experience. I’m the kind of athlete that needs a different stimulus, so that’s going to be interesting because I joined him after my injury, and I didn’t really have a full year of training. I’m very curious to see what we can do after a full year of training without interruptions.

“It’s an exciting position to be in, to do something new and see if it works or what happens.”

As always, what comes next is what matters most.