Olympic bid a possibility says fagan
Martin Fagan has not ruled out trying to qualify for the Olympics at Rio in 2016.
The Mullingar Harriers man has enjoyed a successful return to competitive action after serving a two-year drugs ban and has won a number of high profile races, including the Terenure Five Mile in April and the Waterford Half Marathon earlier this month.
In a wide reaching interview for the Westmeath Examiner’s Sports Review 2014 (free with this week’s edition of the paper), Fagan revealed that his father, Westmeath GAA great Mickey, urged him to return to racing before his death late last year.
“He was always a big supporter of my running and I’m sure what I did hurt him for a while. Towards the end of last year he really encouraged me – he was always a positive person and although I would have doubted myself most days, he would have helped,” he said.
Fagan’s first outing locally was at the Ringtown half marathon on Easter Monday, which he won.
“My sister happened to be running it and I said I’d go along with her. I had no plans to race I was just going to take part and within a minute, the old racing mode switched in and I just went to the front. The competitive side kicked in.”
Running without the stresses of being a full-time athlete and injury-free for the first time in years, the social care graduate, who recently started a new job at a facility for visually impaired adults in Dublin, says he’s enjoying his sport more than ever.
“Running for me right now isn’t like before; now I have different outlets and things and people to distract me to take me away from the running life. Running isn’t my life now, it’s just part of my life.”
While he is confident that he could compete at international level again, Fagan feels it would require him returning to full-time training and probably moving abroad again to train at altitude, a move he is not sure he wants to make.
Despite his new-found equilibrium, Martin's competitive instincts are still there and he refused to rule out a bid at qualifying for the Olympics in 2016.
“I would love to have a focus. Right now I feel that I am turning up to races and just running for the sake of it. I would like to give myself more of a chance to run faster. With the Olympic year coming up, the qualification opens in January – maybe that might convince me, just the excitement of the Olympics coming up might focus me towards qualifying.
“I don’t even know if I’d go, but the idea of qualifying again... because I still feel that I have the ability. I don’t want to stop now and five or six years down the line regret what might have been. It’s in the back of my mind but I guess that I’ll see how it plays out. I just don’t want to commit to anything, I’m too busy living this new life and enjoying it.”