Build it and they will stay at home

AthleticsDCU's scholarship scheme is a bright option for young Irish athletes. Ian O'Riordan reports

With his main training run done for the day, Mark Christie has stretched and showered and returned to the Science and Health building at Dublin City University (DCU) in Glasnevin. It's after 6 p.m., but in there he finds Dr Niall Moyna still busy with a whole range of things. In one room Moyna has some Dublin senior footballers undergoing fitness checks.

He calls Christie into another room, where he takes a blood sample. A minute later, Moyna hands him a printout of the results. Christie has the red blood cell count of a truly elite athlete. He walks out totally reassured, and with that one of the principal theories of sports science is put into practice.

Finding an athlete like Christie at a place like DCU would have been almost impossible during the past 20 years. He would have been at college in America. At 19, he's not just the best junior distance runner in the country, but also the top-ranked 3,000-metre runner in Europe, the result of the eight minutes 04.48 seconds he ran in Santry last May.

It would have been even harder to find athletes like Christie and Colin Costello at DCU at the same time. Costello is the most exciting middle distance prospect in the country, and still has places like Arkansas University knocking down his door looking for his services.

But what has turned DCU into the single most encouraging situation in Irish athletics is that they have a whole team of athletes of this calibre. From Daragh Greene and Eoin Higgins to the top junior women, such as Tracey Williams, Azmera Gebrezgi and Linda Byrne.

More significantly, this comes at a time when Irish athletics has found itself at a significant crossroads. There's no more Sonia O'Sullivan to fly the flag on the world stage and, as the Athens Olympics clearly proved, the sport is moving onto an ever more competitive level.

Athletics Ireland have been told by the Irish Sports Council to get their house in order, or else; but the general feeling is that the sport is really struggling, and it's hard not to feel a little disheartened and even cynical about its future.

Not that you'll find this attitude at DCU, and especially not with Dr Niall Moyna. As head of the Sport Science and Health department at the university, he should have enough on his plate not to have to also care about Irish athletics. But he cares passionately. In just three years Moyna has helped turn DCU's sports scholarship scheme into one magnificent option for young Irish athletes.

Of course, he's got help along the way. DCU's secretary Martin Conry has been particularly supportive, and Clontarf teacher Enda Fitzpatrick, a former Irish international and four-minute miler, now works as part-time coach.

Without much effort they also secured €200,000 from the Bill Cullen Sunshine Scholarship Fund over the next three years. But that, unfortunately, is largely where the help ended. They've got nothing from the Irish Sports Council, and nothing from Athletics Ireland. Moyna tries not to be overly critical of the Sports Council, and it doesn't help that his brother-in-law is John Treacy, but quite clearly he feels a little let down by the system.

"I'd like to think we're doing something a little different," says Moyna, who returned to Ireland four years ago after 18 years involved with American colleges. "But we're certainly not trying to show up someone. Instead, I'd hope that Athletics Ireland might see the way we're trying to develop athletes, and embrace it. This is not the perfect model, but it is a model, and is appropriate for DCU at this time.

"And I wasn't going to sit idly by while nothing was happening. I felt there was pure stagnation the way things were. There were no opportunities for athletes here, and year after year Athletics Ireland just complained about the drain of athletic talent, but did nothing about it."

FITZPATRICK BACKS UP this theory. During the late 1980s he was one of the few young Irish talents who didn't follow the American scholarship route, so he is aware of the pitfalls of staying at home. In many cases, he admitted, he jumped into them: "But Irish athletics at the elite end have always been ahead of the structures that run it," he says. "In fact the association is light years behind. So I would hope we could be embraced as part of the athletics fraternity."

Their work for DCU is as much about the future as the present. Moyna feels athletes are perhaps most in need of support when they leave college. They also need better facilities, and a funding system that's going to develop talent, rather than just reward it.

"You have to be still thinking about these athletes two years after they graduate. If we're depending on the Sports Council or Athletics Ireland, nothing is going to happen. So I'm trying to plan now for that eventuality. The first thing is to provide the opportunity to come back and do a masters degree. Or else just have a base for them here, because it's a huge transition.

"We know only a small percentage of these athletes are ever going to make it to World or Olympic level. But if the majority can become competent at national level, and then a few of them at European level, I'd be very happy."

An athlete of Christie's quality would walk into any American college on a full scholarship. In DCU, he gets the best accommodation on offer and access to the best sports science facilities in the country. Most colleges in America wouldn't touch them, and even the NCTC in Limerick couldn't compete with the range of physiological screening available at DCU. Yet the Sports Council still haven't accredited it for their carding scheme.

The actual training facilities mightn't compare with America, yet right now Christie is content. "I went on a few recruiting trips to America," he says, "and I suppose I felt America was always the place to be. But I felt too that I had to take a step back and look at the best option for me, and with the programme here, my coach here, and of course the degree, this was the better option.

"Right now it's working out perfectly. Last year it was still fairly low key, but it was only the start. I probably was a little sceptical, but already it's proving to be successful, and I think every year it will get better and better." Moyna is determined DCU's services are made available to everyone. Any athlete can come in for free testing. For example, they came across Kildare athlete Eoin Higgins by chance. He came in for testing with a friend and revealed a VO2 max of around 82, which is into Lance Armstrong territory.

"Myself and Enda looked at each other as if to say, Oh My God," recalls Moyna. "He was clearly falling through the cracks, and is now on the Irish team for the European cross country. Other athletes, like Fionnuala Britton, are far better off here. I know she is very talented, but she does need to develop more, and in her fourth year I think will be great."

It remains to be seen how long Moyna's enthusiasm can keep alive the rare opportunities found at DCU. But a little more help would go a long way. "I want people to walk out of here feeling as if athletics is special, that they're getting special treatment. It's a culture thing now that rugby gets all the high performance end of things, and athletics is a very poor relation. At least people can say there's a place in DCU now doing something.

"We're not asking Athletics Ireland to give us a million bucks, but I made the first move to go in and meet them, and I can tell you, the reception I got that day, it would take a hell of a lot for me to go back and meet them again. And the Sports Council have these ridiculous standards to attain before you get support. And even then it's measly.

"So this is not going to succeed unless it's embraced by the Sports Council and Athletics Ireland. I'm not waiting for the Sports Council to contact me, saying 'How can we help you', but if they assigned even €20,000 to everycollege in Ireland that would be a great start."