BY DÁIRE BONNAR
After another good season of competition, Sinead McConnell surpassed her own expectations in August as she brought home a hat-trick of medals at the World Masters Athletics Championships in Gothenburg.
The Finn Valley athlete had previously medalled at the World Indoor Masters Championships in Torun, Poland in 2023 as she took silver individual and team bronze in the 10km Race Walk and an individual bronze in the 3km Race Walk.
Coming into 2024, she then retained her National Indoor and Outdoor titles and backed it up with a trio of medals in Torun once again, this time at the European Masters.
McConnell then helped the Finn Valley ladies women’s team to third in the Premier Division at the National League finals in July.
But the icing on the cake came in Sweden as she picked up three individual medals in the W55 category at the Worlds.
“2024 was a very successful year for me in terms of being a Masters athlete,” said McConnell, who was awarded the Donegal News Sports Personality of the Month Award for August, in conjunction with Brian McCormick Sports & Leisure.
“When everyone else was finished their season I still had another month to go for Sweden. It was a challenge in itself because I was the only Finn Valley athlete travelling, normally I have my sister (Catriona Devine), Kay Byrne, Noreen Bonner and Garvin Boyce with me but this year I was very much on my own.
“It’s something I wanted to do because I had a good season behind me and I wanted to finish it off well.
“It was a long 12 days in fairness. I had the 10km first and it was a great race altogether and I finished second. Two days after was the 5km in a different stadium and the legs did feel it but I got stuck in and finished second again so it was another great race.”
There was a week gap between the second and third race, although the final race was a gruelling 20km Race Walk.
McConnell has had a hamstring tendinopathy issue in recent years and it has hindered her training, making it even more impressive that she medalled in the 20km race having only got up to 14km in training.
“It was the first time I challenged myself with the 20km but it was something I wanted to try, if I was going to get into difficulty then I’d already achieved what I went out to do with the two medals so I had nothing to lose.
“Patsy McGonagle my coach told me to do it sensibly and not go mad racing the rest of them because some of them were going into the race fresh but I gave it everything and it went well.
“The legs at 12km were going and I was thinking ‘I’ve still got 8km to go’ but I knew I was in third place so I tried to hold on and I did that so it was fantastic to come home with three medals.
“I went to Santry in 2023 and got the PRP (Platelet-Rich Plasma) injection and it was successful, I got a year out of it and I’m very grateful for that but I’m injured again now, but it still makes me so grateful for the year, I’m second in the world now for the 10km and 5km and third in the world for the 20km.
“Every year you think you can’t come back and beat what you did before but this year definitely tops it all.”
It has been a remarkable return for McConnell into the athletics scene, considering she had given it up for 28 years.
Family life got in the way but it was her now coach McGonagle that got her back into the competitive action almost a decade ago now.
And coming from the McGranaghan family from Castlefinn, a family rich in sporting tradition, she cites her father Peadar, a Finn Valley stalwart, as her biggest inspiration.
“He had all six of us out in the field behind the house from when we could walk with the light up in the chimney and he’s still my greatest inspiration to this day. “He’s in hospital at the minute with a broken femur but he’s fighting back, he’s a great man.
“I came back for a National League as Finn Valley had no walker and Patsy messaged me to ask if I’d come back and I said ‘if I had a coach I might’, so he’s been stuck coaching me since!
“That’s about nine or ten years ago, and I’m hooked again now.”
With injury currently, hopes of competing at the 2025 World Masters in Florida may be put on hold temporarily for McConnell, but she has dipped into coaching herself and is helping the young stars at the Finn Valley club to compete at the highest level of Race Walking.
“It was on the cards but at the minute I’m coaching Leah O’Gara and Aoife McGranaghan at the club and we’re heading to Sheffield for the British Indoors this weekend and the two girls will compete there. In two weeks we’re heading to Guadix in Spain to meet some of the Spanish walkers so they’re very excited.
“I’m hoping they have a great season, I’d like to be training with them but I’m enjoying it.”
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