Orla Comerford’s bags are packed, India’s Golden Triangle awaits. Tucked within the luggage are a couple of newly acquired gold medals – a few extra kilograms for her suitcase but an unquantifiable weight lifted off her shoulders.
A double world champion now.
Over three days at the World Para Athletics Championships in New Delhi last week, the Dubliner confirmed her stature as one of the sport’s top female sprinters.
Gold in the final of the T13 100m (athletes with a visual impairment) on Sunday was followed by gold in the T13 200m on Tuesday. She dominated both races, leading from gun to line, taking off down the track with an authoritative there’s-a-new-sheriff-in-town air whistling off her slipstream.
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In September 2024, Comerford won bronze in the 100m at the Paralympic Games in Paris. Then in June she set a new 200m personal best of 24.62. A few weeks later she posted a 100m lifetime best of 11.87.
It has been a season.
“My life changed so much after Paris,” says the 28-year-old Raheny Shamrock sprinter.
Shortly after the Paralympics, she moved to join Daniel Kilgallon’s training group in Tallaght. Among others, Kilgallon has coached Rhasidat Adeleke and Israel Olatunde. A school for speedsters. It felt like somewhere she ought to be.
“I was kind of in this whirlwind after Paris, I knew there was more there and I wanted to be able to bring that out.”
She took gold in the 100m last Sunday in a time of 11.88. She clocked 24.71 to win the 200m, smoking former world champions in both races.
The gold in the 200m was a bonus. She came for the loot in the 100m but left space in the suitcase for more, just in case.
“To come away with both is absolutely surreal.”
The world record at 100m is 11.76. It dangles in front of Comerford now, closer than ever.
But her ambitions outrun the lane some labels occasionally try to put her in.
She is a strong advocate for more integrated meets. Comerford qualified for the 100m final at the Irish National Championships in August. On the start line with the best sprinters in Ireland. Where she belongs. The bronze medal was won in 11.60. Comerford came home in 11.95.
“Being at Nationals, people see you there in the same category competing, they see it’s not something separate. And I think that’s really important.
“Nationals will always be something that I’m striving to perform better in each year. And it’s something that I have my own goals and aspirations for as well.”
But, two months before Delhi, this was not the year to leave everything out on the track at Morton Stadium. There will be another time for that.
“(Female) sprinting in Ireland right now is probably the strongest it’s ever been. That’s beneficial to all of us to be surrounded by that level of performance. It’s a rising tide that lifts all boats and I’m very happy to be one of those boats.”
There is another race para-athletes often face too and Comerford is prepared to take up that baton also. It’s a race against perceptions.
“I kind of have two main goals in what I do. The first set of goals are all quite selfish, I want to run certain times, achieve certain results.
“But off the track I have a wider goal of wanting to be part of a movement to bring para athletics into the mainstream fold and being a part of a push to have more integrated meets.”
Comerford has Stargardt disease, a degenerative eye condition. She was diagnosed at the age of 11 but has refused to allow it to become the defining character in her story.
“There are advancements in gene therapies and experimental treatments but the last time I went to my eye doctor, he just said, ‘You have way too much to lose, you have a life that’s so full.’
“Of course there are challenges but you find your own way. It’s amazing these therapies are happening. The reality is that some people with a diagnosis like mine, it can limit their lives. They feel they can’t do things, they feel it changes their prospects, and maybe they can benefit from some of those experimental surgeries.
“But I suppose for me, I don’t think that my life is limited. I don’t think that I have lost something. I think I’ve gained opportunities. I think I’ve gained resilience.”
There have been losses along the way, though. On track and in life.
As she raced to victory last week, Comerford had bright blue ribbons tied to both shoes in memory of her childhood friend Elaine Moran who passed away at just 16.
At Elaine’s funeral, her friends wore blue ribbons. Her parents subsequently set up a foundation with Heart Children Ireland - The Blue Ribbon Fund. It says much about Comerford’s character that she continues to take her friend down the track with her on such days.
“It’s also a really nice process when I’m in the call-room and I’m tying up my spikes, tying the ribbons in, it just reminds me in those moments of how lucky I am to be there. I think about the people who are looking down over me. Elaine very much lives on in all of us who knew her and loved her.”
On the night Comerford won bronze in Paris last September, swimmer Róisín Ní Ríain finished third in the 200m individual medley. Comerford fondly branded them as bronze sisters.
Last Sunday, the Raheny runner became a world champion on the same day as her long-time friend, Greta Streimikyte. After so many years hammering at the door, they both finally kicked it open within hours of each other.
Streimikyte joined Paul Brady’s training group this season and her years of persistence were rewarded when she blew the field away in the T13 1,500m final.
A few hours later Comerford blazed a trail in the 100m. Their stories had followed a similar narrative for large chunks of their careers but in Delhi they penned the latest chapter with a gilded pen. They are forever connected by that day now. Gold sisters.
During the week, in a quiet moment during the afterglow of their respective successes, the pair recalled sharing a room together in Rio in 2016 at a time when Jason Smyth and Michael McKillop were hoovering up medals for Ireland on the world stage.
“Greta reminded me, ‘You said all those years ago, imagine if that was us one day. And I told you it would be. It’s taken us nine years, but we’re here now’.”
Streimikyte is joining Comerford on the trip around India’s Golden Triangle. Just a couple of world champions rocking up to the Taj Mahal.
Their European Championships are next year and beyond that the 2028 LA Games are on the horizon.
“When I sat down with Daniel to talk about our goals for the season, this was the target. But I still believe there’s more to come, we can do more and improve more.”
Orla Comerford, double world champion, not done yet. The journey continues, in spikes and at pace.
