Since April the outdoor track and field season has been underway, with a busy few months for me as I travelled with both the juniors and the seniors for warm weather training camps in Portugal, and the European Team Championships in Turkey.
The junior camp was in Alfa Mar in Portugal, and consisted of 14 youths, training for the youth Olympics and World Youth championships, and 16 juniors hoping to qualify for the European Junior Champsionships. The juniors were my remit as I will be travelling with them to these championships in Tallin in July.
The most rewarding thing as a physio working with juniors is the fact that they are on such a steep learning curve about their training and how their bodies move. The fact that they are so young (juniors need to be 19 or under), their bodies also respond really quickly to rehab and treatment. The main aim of my week was to screen everyone in relation to their strength and movement, pinpoint any injury risk factors, and address these with a rehab programme. The group had disciplines of track and field events, including race walker and recent European Cup junior bronze medallist Kate Veale. Unfortunately the warm element to the training did not work out very well on this trip!
Senior camp is a totally different ball-game. Athletes are much more tuned in to how their particular body moves and performs, particularly in terms of how it responds at different times of the season. Track and field athletics, unlike team sports, has athletes based all over Ireland, in addition to England, Germany and the USA. They congregate at training camps and competitions mainly so there is often a nice “catch-up” atmosphere. I have done this camp a number of times over the years, and I have to say this one was the most relaxed I have worked on. Everyone was in good spirits, with familiar names such as Derval O’Rourke, Paul Hession, Olive Loughnane and Ailis McSweeney at the Competition, among others. The main aim for most of these athletes this year, apart from this being pre-Olympic year, is attaining the qualification standard for the World Championships in Korea in August.
The European Team Championships takes place every year. Ireland got promoted to league 1 two years ago (there are 4 leagues- the super league, with countries such as GB, France, Germany, and leagues 1-3). Ireland spent a long time working to get promoted to league 1, and was determined to hold their place, especially since we hope to host the next European Team Championships in 2013 (there is none next year due to the Olympics and European Championships). So it was important for the older athletes to leave their legacy, and for the younger ones to make their stamp. Thankfully Ireland avoided relegation (by one place!), and had some stand-out performances, including our highest placing individual, Wicklow’s Fionnuala Britton, who came 2nd in the 5,000m, and who has already made her World Championships and Olympic standards. Fionnuala is definitely an athlete to watch.
Next up is European Juniors in Estonia in July, with 14 athletes having made the standard to date, including medal hopefuls Ciara Mageean and Mark English.
