Well before Oisín Joyce improved the Irish under-20 javelin record to 73.72 metres to win the Mannheim International meeting in Germany in June he’d already built a reputation as one of the most promising throwers in the country.
Last summer, when still only 18, Joyce won his first Irish senior javelin title for Lake District AC, the small juvenile club in Ballinrobe, Co Mayo, founded just over 10 years ago. He went on to finish sixth in the European Under-20 Championships.
His 73.72m broke new ground again, moving him to fourth on the Irish all-time senior list and also qualifying him for the World Under-20 Championships. They get under way in Lima, Peru on Tuesday, where Joyce is ranked sixth best among the global entries.
“They keep you humble around here in Ballinrobe,” Joyce said before departing for Peru last Thursday, in case there was any fear of that reputation going to his head.
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“At the start of the year, my goal would have been to be up around that distance. I actually didn’t have great preparation going in, had a small shoulder injury, but I was quite relaxed about it and it just happened.”
Joyce may be something of a novelty in Ballinrobe, and yet he fits in comfortably among the new generation of Irish athletes, keen and able to make a name outside the more traditional distance running events, and more recently the sprints.
The Irish team of 13 athletes in Lima also includes Elizabeth Ndudi, who last summer won the long jump at the European Under-20 Championships. The 19-year-old from Dublin is ranked third best of the entries this week after improving the Irish senior record to 6.68m in Illinois back in April.
Lima will arguably be the most competitive athletics event this year after the Paris Olympics, with 1,720 athletes entered from 134 countries, several of whom also competed in Paris. One measure of that quality in the javelin is the presence of Slovenia’s Tom Tersek, who threw a national under-20 record of 80.87m in June. He is still only 17.
Joyce considers himself a student of the javelin in every sense, hungry to learn as much as possible, and from as many sources as possible. He’s met up a few times this summer with Terry McHugh, who still holds the Irish senior record with his 82.75m, set back in 2000.
“He’s always been good for a word of advice,” said Joyce, “and a good man to look up to. And with the javelin there is always something to work on, something else to learn. My run up is quite good, but I’m trying to work on holding that position for longer.
“And I just love to compete, and in competition, when you know really let it go, it’s really satisfying. I suppose it’s like hitting a golf ball exactly right. You know straight away, you can feel it.”
Joyce first took up the javelin purely for fun when joining his local club, and credits his father, Pádraic, and mother, Pauline, as part of his backroom coaching team. He also played Gaelic football until this summer.
“Sure when you’re from Mayo you don’t have a choice and this summer was the first time I left, just to concentrate on the javelin.
“It started with the local athletics club, like everyone else, doing running, long jump, bit of everything. Then one of my friends was doing the javelin, and you start out in pairs, in under-9s, on the turbo javelin.
“Then around under-17 I wasn’t sure if I’d keep going. Decided to give it one more go, that winter, and went from 53m to 69m. My clubmate here, Conor Cusack, he also threw 72m as a junior, and we’ve a few others to train with too.
“We used to train on the rugby pitch in Ballinrobe, then they built a 200m track here, beside the rugby pitch actually. So I do some sessions there, but if I want to do full throwing and running sessions, I have to go to Claremorris, or Dangan in Galway.”
After taking a year out after his Leaving Cert, Joyce will start at the University of Limerick when he returns from Peru, and is already setting his sights on the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
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