LAST UPDATE | 28 Nov 2019
THE PICTURE DOES not paint all the words. That day, she was another young fan among the long queue for a photo with Ireland’s running queen.
“I was very shy,” Ciara Mageean allows although her beaming face masks this anxious trait. None could know how significant their picture. Beside this budding runner from Portaferry, one sunny day 15 years ago, the bright familiar features of a champion Cobh racer.
“I am even more in awe of Sonia now, at the age of 27, knowing the gravity of the performances that she produced,” Mageean says. “As you start to get closer to her accomplishments, you realise how amazing her times were.”
Only medals put the athlete on a podium but time serves a higher purpose. Perspective broadens, each passing year. Browse the records, scan the markers that O’Sullivan set, to see her retrospective.
Distance running demands speed endurance. Sonia O’Sullivan’s pace was already apparent when she set the world indoor best at 5000m in 1991. Her ability to endure, no certainty for any rising star, would determine her career. Olympic silver at Sydney in 2000 fulfilled that promise but the years between were beset with broken dreams.
“I take strength from the fact that she came back from really tough times and disappointing races,” Mageean attests. “It didn’t taint her career. She didn’t let that become her as an athlete.”
The County Down native, Ireland’s latest middle distance star, contemplates the career of her famous predecessor midway through a hard training week: “I do like that we’re the Fighting Irish. I think she definitely has that. Out training on days that are absolutely miserable like today, a cold November day, these are the things that make athletes tough and make world champions. Sonia had it in abundance.”
O’Sullivan set the bar so high the world became her stage. Mageean, approaching similar feats, inevitably gained comparison.
“That comes with a bit of pressure but it also comes with a bit of pride,” Mageean explains. “I think, ‘My goodness, if I’m running faster than Sonia at the age of 16, 17, 18 could I do the same at 26, 27, 28?’ Could I run as fast as her? Could I run faster?”
Enticing prospects became the spur. Other factors, common denominators, propelled Mageean: “You often hear that people born at altitude have an advantage but she was born in Cobh. That’s at sea level, same as me. It shows the path that I’m treading is possible too. It’s not only for elite Ethiopians and Kenyans. A wee girl from a small town in Ireland can race with the best in the world.”
International competition brought them together in 2009 at the European Youth Olympics. O’Sullivan served as Ireland’s chef de mission. Mageean took gold in the 1500m. Catherine, her mother, was now the one seeking answers.
“There was a lot of pressure on her to make decisions for me because I was a Juvenile,” Ciara recalls. “They had to decide what races to go to. She sent an email to Sonia and I was like: ‘You’ve done what? Mummy, can you please not bother somebody like Sonia with a question about a 16 year old’s athletic career?’ She was so kind to my mum and messaged her back. She was so aware of other girls coming up.”
Unburdened by O’Sullivan’s presence, Mageean felt emboldened by the chance to make her mark: “You kind of want to impress as well. To come off with a medal and she tells you, ‘Well done’, that carries a wee bit more weight than whenever your mummy and daddy say it.”
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Pilgrims both, it became their annual escape: Santry’s Morton Stadium, watching the National Championships unfold.
Father and daughter savoured those occasions because they got to see the star. The Galligans, far from alone, marvelled at the wonder of it all.
“She was definitely my idol,” notes Rose-Anne, now 31. “We were in awe.”
First year at Secondary school, her classmates joined the chorus. Their lesson was interrupted to showcase special pictures from Sydney. A famous scene took shape at the top of the room.
“We had one of those big televisions wheeled in on a trolley,” Galligan recollects. “It was brilliant. No other sport, the rest of my schooling days, stopped a class. She was obviously special to the entire country. Even if we had someone in an Olympic final now I don’t think they’d bring a TV in.”
Four years on from this extraordinary national moment, Rose-Anne Galligan lined up alongside Sonia O’Sullivan in the final of the Irish 800m at Santry. They finished close together: Galligan at five, O’Sullivan in third, not even two seconds between.
“I had no nerves,” Galligan insists. “I was just so excited. She was a class act.”
This great career, as it concluded, ushered in the next wave. By happy coincidence, O’Sullivan was back at the Nationals in 2009. Galligan ran clear in the 800m and claimed her first senior title.
“Sonia presented the medal to me,” she reveals. “I have a lovely picture of it at home. I was so happy it was her presenting it because normally you get some random official.”
Their connection strengthened when Galligan gained a place at St Mary’s University, Twickenham. O’Sullivan lived nearby. She got in touch and arranged to meet for a run at Bushy Park.
“She gave me great advice about training and racing,” Galligan remembers. “Some athletes wouldn’t be approachable. After our run, she gave me her number and email.”
This generosity met with gratitude: “I had moved away from home for the first time. She asked about my training. She made me feel happier that I was doing the right thing.”
The relationship took on new coordinates in 2013. Galligan clocked a national record in the 800m, lowering the previous best set by O’Sullivan, which had stood for 19 years.
“Because I knew it was Sonia’s record, I wanted it,” Galligan acknowledges.
Other goals proved stubbornly elusive. Injury and illness derailed Olympic ambitions. The last three seasons there has been no reprieve but she keeps an open mind about Tokyo 2020 in part because her thinking is informed by O’Sullivan.
“Knowing she’s had all those setbacks and knowing she came back, in my head I’m thinking about that,” Galligan discloses. “She’s having an impact on me knowing that I’m not giving up here. I know I have good times in me.”
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Freshers Week in UCD and the apartment block is quiet.
On the TV, Sydney. Outside, students seek each other out en route to various drinking dens. The bars fill up, bustling with new customers growing more boisterous by the hour. Anticipation rises. The possibilities are tantalising: a new world open and everyone free to call their own shots. Is it possible to be this excited on a weekday?
Monday, 25 September 2000 marked the beginning of Derval O’Rourke’s college tenure but the date is stacked in memory for a different reason.
“I remember drinking a cup of tea and screaming at the television on my own,” O’Rourke recounts. “I was probably the only person who was not out on the lash.”
A Rebel raced; a Rebel roared. On the small screen, an Irish silver star appeared. Sonia O’Sullivan, by claiming her place on the Olympic podium, elevated all.
“By the time she ran that race in Sydney, I was 19 and a bit more aware of the world of track,” says O’Rourke. “For me, it definitely was important in terms of seeing that it was possible to be doing stuff like that on a global scale.”
Nobody could deny that Sonia was a household name. To this day, her achievements reckon with the greats. But it tells something about her extraordinary talent that she rose to fame long before women in sport moved beyond the periphery.
“I never thought as a female athlete that I didn’t have opportunities because the person most visible to me was a female Irish athlete,” O’Rourke states. “People forget she was so famous. When things didn’t go well, there was a whole nation watching. She handled that with grace and she always came back.”
Their careers briefly overlapped. At the 2004 Games, O’Sullivan ran a poignant farewell in the 5,000m final. O’Rourke, meanwhile, was struggling with life at Olympic level.
“I sent her an email in 2004 asking her for some advice,” she relays. “I just wanted some guidance from someone who was so successful. She emailed back. It was really long and really detailed and really generous.”
This message explained a multitude: “Her email was very much like: ‘If you want to make this work, you’re the only person who can do it.’ I had to make it happen.”
From O’Sullivan’s detailed response, O’Rourke absorbed a champion’s imprint. Unpacked, the content was clear and uncompromising: attend to every detail, become more professional, assume responsibility.
“She was probably the first person who was really blunt about that and it’s something I always appreciated,” O’Rourke reflects. “It would have been easy for her to plamás me. It’s harder to tell people the truth about how hard some things are. It did me a service.”
Like her mentor, the rewards came eventually. World Indoor champion in 2006, O’Rourke claimed five major medals before retiring in 2014. At a remove from the sport, she moved closer to her icon, discovering a different angle during their time together as television pundits.
“She was such a superstar from the get go for me that it was only when I retired that I was able to have a proper conversation with her,” O’Rourke admits. “She was outrageously gifted. You cannot underestimate the type of engine she had. But then you have to pair that with the fact that she had to be extremely resilient because her career was highs and lows. And they were very publicly played out as well.”
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Ciara Mageean, thinking of Sonia O’Sullivan, holds her picture dear: “I remember her smile and the fact that her eyes closed a wee bit. She was so open and supportive. The fact that you had somebody of the calibre of Sonia, you really felt like a big player. It made you feel very special.”
Rose-Anne Galligan finds resilience the best word: “It seemed like she had no pain barrier. She would never give up.”
Two years after O’Sullivan finished second in Sydney, Derval O’Rourke represented Ireland at the European Championships. Munich 2002 teamed the Cork athletes for the first time: “I remember watching Sonia and Paula Radcliffe going hard, lap after lap after lap, in this lashing rain. The two of them were just so tough.”
Beyond abiding images, O’Sullivan changed the mindset of a generation.
“Sonia made being a world class sportsperson seem like the norm to teenage girls like me,” asserts O’Rourke. “That’s an incredible thing.”
