All within Irish athletics, and far beyond, are reeling from the shock announcement that Ciara Mageean has started treatment for cancer.
In a statement issued on Friday evening, the 33-year-old Mageean briefly outlined the extent of her illness, and the reason for going public with her cancer diagnosis. Her clear intention to pursue all available treatment was also made clear.
“To everyone who’s been part of my journey so far, I have some difficult news to share: I’ve been diagnosed with cancer,” she said.
“It’s been a lot to take in, but I’ve already started treatment and I’m incredibly grateful to be surrounded by the love and support of my family and close friends.
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“Right now, my focus is on healing and taking things one day at a time. I kindly ask that you respect my privacy and that of my loved ones as we move through this together. Your understanding means more than I can say.
“Thank you for the love and strength. I’m ready to face this with the same fight I’ve always brought to the track.”
The announcement comes heartbreakingly sudden, just over a year since Mageean was crowned European champion in the 1,500m, winning the gold medal inside the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. With that Mageean became Ireland’s only second individual European athletics champion after Sonia O’Sullivan.
It also completed her full set of European medals, the Down athlete previously winning 1,500m bronze in 2016, and silver in 2022 – plus a European indoor bronze from 2019.
Mageean’s hopes of transferring that Rome success on to the Olympic stage were then dashed on the eve of her 1,500m heat in Paris in August, when she was forced to make the tortured decision to withdraw after struggling with an Achilles tendon injury in the two weeks before.
A month later, Mageean underwent surgery in London on her right Achilles tendon, 12 years after she required the exact same surgery on her left Achilles tendon. Both were potentially career-ending injuries, and yet characteristically undeterred, Mageean was already planning full steam ahead for the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.
In a lengthy interview with this newspaper at the end of May, carried out on bright sunny afternoon at the Sport Ireland Institute in Abbotstown, Mageean was planning ahead in other ways too. She’d travelled down that morning from her new home in Belfast, which she bought a few months after Paris with her fiance Thomas Moran. The couple were engaged on New Year’s Eve.
“Yeah, my focus is LA,” she said, “and [I] fully believe if I just get two consistent seasons, nothing special, no injuries, I think I can still be dangerous.
“I’ve been running in pain for so long, seven or eight years, the aim is to be able to run and not be in pain. I just ran 30 minutes, four miles, on the flat. With no pain. Then all of my gym with no pain. So today was a good day.”
She was also convinced she can still improve on her Irish record of 3:55.87, clocked in 2023. “I look back at my 3:55, what I did before that, and if I’m not in pain, I can do that and then some. If I didn’t think I could run faster than 3:55 I would retire. I know I’ll be 36 in LA, but I’m determined to be there.”
[ Few Irish athletes have displayed more resilience than Ciara MageeanOpens in new window ]
There were also highs and lows in her 2023 season, which included a fourth-place finish in the World Championship 1,500 metres in Budapest.
Paris was meant to be Mageean’s third Olympics. A calf-muscle injury crushed her hopes of progressing beyond the heats in Tokyo; she was typically hard on herself after running short of her best in the semi-finals in Rio; and although at one point close to qualifying for London in 2012, her then young running career soon came to a complete standstill.
She’s always taken considerable heart from her former coach Jerry Kiernan, who died suddenly in January 2021, aged 67, and who more than anyone else nurtured her through that difficult transition out of the junior ranks, when the troublesome Achilles issue left her wondering might she ever make it back.
Still few if any Irish athletes have endured more setbacks and displayed more powers of resilience in the face of adversity than Mageean. A year after Tokyo, she won silver at the European Championships and Commonwealth Games, then finally broke O’Sullivan’s Irish 1,500m record which had stood since 1995.
It is 17 years now since she won her first Irish indoor senior title, at age 15, over 1,500m, knocking two seconds off the Irish junior record. Since then, she’s had to live with a few labels as well (whisper “the next Sonia”), but she always carved her own pathway. She currently holds Irish records over 800m, 1,000m, 1,500m and the mile – which at one stage all belonged to Sonia O’Sullivan.
Growing up in Portaferry, at the tip of the Ards Peninsula, she’d begin her school days with an 8.15 ferry trip across Strangford Lough to catch the bus to Assumption Grammar, Ballynahinch.
After Paris, and having been based in Manchester since 2017, Mageean’s search for a new home was originally split between Dublin and Belfast, then focused on Belfast, and they settled on Dunmurray, on the city’s southside, within beautiful running spaces.
“I’m absolutely loving being home, it’s been the right decision,” she said. “Now we’ve two wee cats, we’ve got our name for a dog. I feel we’re building a little life for ourselves, close to family.
“And I’d definitely love to start a family. As an athlete, I’m well aware you can have a baby and keep racing. But I’ve been knocked back in so many seasons due to injury, I don’t know if I wanted to willingly miss one to have a baby.
“But post-LA, definitely, and you can only hope you’ll be lucky enough and graced with the ability.”
Her focus now is on healing, and all of Irish athletics wishes her the very best.
