European redemption for gutsy Mageean
The smile said it all — a bright, bleary-eyed grin, Ciara Mageean’s eyes close to tears for reasons of a very different kind to what we had seen before.
These were tears of joy, a welcome contrast to those we saw her shed in torrents at this event in 2017, when Mageean stepped off the track midway through the 1500m final in Belgrade a broken athlete – in many ways.
This time, she stepped away wrapped in the Irish tricolour. Glistening in green. Brilliant in bronze. Her third place in last night’s 1500m final at the European Indoor Championships in Glasgow brought a sweet sense of redemption for the 26-year-old, re-establishing the permanency of her class. Not that it was ever truly in doubt, not where it counted — in her mind.
For those who had followed her virtuoso ability since her teenage years, her career was destined for the very highest level, but even ardent supporters must have wondered if we’d seen the best years of it.
She last won an international medal in 2016, and since then had faltered at many a major event.
“I’ve had to pick myself up after too many championships but now I’m going to enjoy my athletics,” said Mageean. “Other people can look at peaks and troughs, but it’s impossible to be on a peak all the time. Life doesn’t work like that. My athletics career will be tough and the lows will be low, but my goodness, the highs are high.”
She uttered the words with a delighted grin, wrapped again in a tricolour and luxuriating in the feeling of being back in a place it seemed — at one stage — she might never again grace.
“Every medal is special,” said Mageean, who was relayed news of Mark English’s bronze before she went to the line. “To see another Irish athlete go through and win a medal, how could that not cheer you up when everybody in the crowd is smiling and you think: ‘Right, we’re going to have two medals going home.’? ”
If she felt the pressure, it didn’t show, Mageean cruising along towards the back as race favourite Laura Muir churned out a steady early tempo. It was nothing fast — 69 seconds at 400m, 2:19 at 800m — but the gears started turning with three laps to run. Mageean slotted in behind Poland’s Sofia Ennaoui and on the final lap — with Muir a distant leader — she sling-shotted past. It was a run that wouldn’t quite carry her to silver, Mageean overtaken by Ennaoui crossing in 4:09.43.
“I came in with the aim to win a medal and a part of me is annoyed that I didn’t win a silver, but if you asked me whether I would win a medal months ago I would say: ‘Yeah, I’ll have that’. “I said I’m going to run my best race and walk off the track with my head held high — that’s all any athlete can do.”
