Nov 22,2024
Ciara Mageean insists that Los Angeles is still in her sights as she continues her recovery from the surgery that kept her out of the Paris Olympics.
The 32-year-old from Portaferry looked to have timed her Olympic preparation to perfection during the summer as she won 1500m gold at the European Championships in Rome in June.
But the decision to put off surgery on troublesome bone spurs on her ankle eventually came back to haunt her at the worst possible time.
"It was nearly the worst thing to happen to you that you were so successful over the past few years, because I knew five years ago I needed surgery on this ankle.
"I chatted to the consultant who did the surgery and he said to me: 'you need surgery on it but you're running too well for me to open you up.'
"I was running PBs and taking on the world so I wasn't going to stop. I was going to keep going until I was forced to stop.
"Unfortunately for me, that was the Olympic Games this year and it's heart-breaking because I don't know why it couldn't have been two weeks after; put me out of some Diamond Leagues, I wouldn't have minded."
Mageean pulled out of the Irish National Championships shortly after her European success, before posting a worrying performance at a Diamond League event in Paris in July, in which she came home nearly three seconds off her own Irish record.
The form didn't seem right and speculation began to mount about whether the two-time Olympian would make it to the start line of the heats in Paris. Finally, the news that followers of Irish athletics had feared arrived in early August as she pulled out with an injury.
Mageean says she had been doing everything she could to make the start line, right up to the week of the event.
"I sat in the [Olympic] village, having flown in to have two injections into my ankle to try to get this settled down to see if I could tow the line," she continued.
"Injections that I was told previously not to get because it was too much of a risk. But when you're a week out from an Olympic Games, you take these risks. You say it's worth it to try to toe the line because it's my life's work."
Mageean is of the view that she could have run through the pain, but it was the ability to perform on her ankle that was holding her back.
"I was running and the function of my ankle just wasn't there," she added.
"I couldn't toe off, when I put my foot down it was just flat. So I couldn't even lie to myself and say it was OK, despite trying.
"Believe you me, I was trying."
Once the realisation dawned on Mageean, it was a case of having to face up to the heart-breaking reality hat she wouldn't make it to the Stade de France.
"A teary me sat beside [boyfriend] Thomas in the village and made the decision to withdraw from my third Olympic Games.
"Thomas needed to take a moment away because he didn't want me to see him cry. I phoned my family and told them I was withdrawing, which was tough because they'd flown all that way to watch their daughter race at the Olympics.
"I gave up on that dream then."
While it was the nadir of Mageean's career, it wasn't by any means the end of it. She has committed to running at the next Games in just under four years' time.
It was a decision she took almost immediately.
"I sat down with Thomas and he put his arm around me and said, 'you won your gold medal in Rome and Italy had a special place for Jerry [Kiernan, former coach].
"LA was his Olympics, so we're going to focus on that. My dream may have been dashed but in that moment I firmly set my sights on the next four-year cycle.
"That that won't be the last memory I have of the Olympic Games. I'm going to go out on my terms.
"I went to the doc, told him I was withdrawing. He told me to take a few days and I came back and said we would arrange the surgery because the world champs are in a year's time.
"The sooner I get surgery, the sooner I recover, and this next four-year cycle is on."
