By Ciaran O’Donnell
Sport continues to be the rarest and most head-scratching of things. In 2017, Brendan Boyce travelled to Poděbrady in the Czech Republic for the 50k European Race Walking Championships and left completely devastated after finishing fourth. On Sunday at the same event in Alytus, Lithunnia, the Milford native crossed the line in fifth position and was almost overwhelmed with the sense of satisfaction and elation – such was the reward for his performance.
His lifetime best time of 3:48:13 was fast enough to ensure selection for next year’s Tokyo Olympics. It’s a nice place to be for the Finn Valley AC athlete who’s now based in Cork and coached by five-time Olympian and 2013 50k World Champion, Rob Heffernan.
“It’s brilliant to get it done so early and be the first to gain qualification for 2020,” enthuses the 32-year-old who has competed in both the London Olympics in 2012 and in the Rio Olympics in 2016.
While he’s thrilled to have his seat booked for Tokyo so far out, the focus before Sunday was solely on performance.
“To be honest, we didn’t talk much about qualification. We were preparing to win a medal, so one was going to follow the other. We were prepared to go and race hard. I felt I was in really good shape.”
Given the lively pace of the race, Brendan figured that a qualification time was going to be a given. The first 5k was slightly on the slow side. Conditions on Sunday were warm and the temperature rose to 25 degrees for the last hour of the race.
“I thought maybe I’ll have to be the one to make the race hard. After about 5k the lads starting taking off and from 10k to 40k the race was really fast. Over the last 5k I had to regroup and think what my time at the end was going to be. Overall the focus was always on racing and trying to win a medal. I was right up there with the group at 43k and they just pulled away then,” he says.
“I was fourth in the same event two years ago and I felt I threw a medal away. This time I was fifth and I felt like I won fifth place rather than losing out – sometimes sport can be like that,” he adds.
While delighted to have shaved the guts of a minute off his PB, Brendan thinks he had a bit more to give.
“I felt I was in 3:45 shape. I do believe I can go faster than that,” he says with confidence.
Prior to the London Olympics, Brendan was being coached in England.
“Rob was so good there (in London) when finishing fourth and he was subsequently upgraded to a bronze medal. I had trained with him before that and after London I asked him if he would coach me. He told me he couldn’t coach me when I was in Donegal.”
Keen to team up with Ireland’s best ever race walker, Brendan bit the bullet and relocated to Cork at the end of 2012.
“I’m here a long time now and I’m getting married to a Cork girl, Sarah McCarthy, in two weeks. We’re after buying a house in Midleton outside Cork so it looks like I’ll be here for a long time,” he says with a laugh.
Eight years ago, it was a much younger and less experienced Brendan Boyce who was chasing the Olympic dream.
“When I qualified for London the first time I thought ‘this is it’. I wasn’t thinking too far beyond that because I was happy to make an Olympic Games. But then after you compete at that level that becomes your new mindset – especially when Rob’s your coach. Rob’s gone to five Olympics which is the most for any Irish athlete,” he says.
Brendan’s aim is to nail down more performances so that he can receive more funding. He’s currently on the international carding and he’s hopeful that his status will be promoted to world class after securing qualification at the weekend.
“I felt I was in Lithuania to win a medal. Europe is so strong right now. Yohann Diniz from France (who won Sunday’s race in 3:37:43) is the world record holder and there’s another Slovakian who didn’t race at the weekend because he was injured and he’s the Olympic winner from Rio. If you’re anywhere near a medal in Europe, you’re not far away from a world medal either. All the lads are so strong. The Ukrainian who won this event two years ago was only sixth on Sunday, so I actually beat the fellow who won the European gold in 2017. Everyone is so close and everything is so competitive in Europe right now. It’s a good indication for the World Championships in Doha and for Tokyo as well.”
Because the World Championships are not being held until the end of September, Brendan has scheduled in a longer break than normal to give some free time around his wedding.
He trained extremely well in November and December and clocked a PB in the 30k national championships in December. That crucial block of hard slog was interrupted, however, because of a hamstring injury in January.
“That was the only part of the preparation that wasn’t perfect,” he says of the first four weeks of 2019.
In retrospect, that month without any intense sessions did him no harm at all. He got back into the groove in February and enjoyed his time at a training camp in Spain.
“All the sessions were really good and the weekly mileage was bigger than anything I’d done before. My biggest week was about 195 kilometres,” he says.
“It was really, really tough training. I knew if I could get to the start line without any injuries that I was going to be really strong. The preparation was good for Sunday’s event. It bodes well for Doha and going forward next year,” he adds.
“I went for a medal on Sunday and came up short. But that’s sport.”