Closing the Belfield track completely off the rails

ATHLETICS:There are so many nonsensical aspects to this sorry story that not even a stay of execution would provide a suitable antidote, writes IAN O'RIORDAN

THIS WAS planned as a nice, straightforward run through some of the remaining events of the year – such as tomorrow’s Intercounties cross country at Sligo racecourse, then the European Cross Country in Slovenia on December 11th – before I set off to test some high-altitude theories and other mad methods of distance running in Kenya and Ethiopia.

Then they go and dig up the track at Belfield.

Not since the former governing artists known as BLÉ tried to ban our leading athletes for not handing over a chunk of their earnings has there been such universal anger within the Irish athletics community. Indeed, there was no mistaking this as the shock and horror of an amputation, not the silent realisation of an old sporting facility that had perhaps run its course.

So, here we go again. Instead of talking up what should be a medal-winning climax to the year (or at least if Fionnuala Britton runs true to form in Slovenia), all the talk now is about digging up one of the most popular if not iconic running tracks in Ireland.

Why does it always have to be this way?

Belfield was, after all, once a world record arena, and also witnessed many of the greatest performances during that golden era of Irish athletics in the 1980s. Even in more recent years, despite its sad and neglected state, it served an essential purpose for a lot of athletes in the south Dublin area, not to mention the largest student body in the country.

Now it stinks of a heinous and horribly commercial and insensitive decision.

Although this is not just about UCD, we still don’t have a proper indoor running track in Ireland, despite countless Government promises.

Yet here goes one of our original and best outdoor tracks, well before its necessary replacement has even left the planning room floor.

In some ways Belfield was more than just a running track. It nursed and encouraged countless junior athletes over the years, including myself, and during the long summer evenings became not just a wonderful training venue but a sort of social haven, where runners of all ages and standards would share thoughts and dreams and sometimes wild ambitions.

But don’t take my word for it. Thanks to Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page and Jack Dorsey it didn’t take long before the full realisation and impact of what UCD was doing to their beloved track went “viral”, if that is the right term.

Unlike the 1980s, when BLÉ’s threatened ban was eventually leaked to an evening newspaper, this closing of the Belfield track was all over the social network by Tuesday afternoon, within hours of the diggers moving in to prepare it for some more profitable use.

It saved me having to ring around to get some reaction, so, courtesy of microblogging, here’s a taste of how others are feeling:

“Very sad news about the digging up of UCD track, its where it all started for me as an athlete!” – David Gillick.

“I often trained at belfield, and raced all Ireland’s just before 1992 Olympics, once supervised by Noel Carroll too.” – Sonia O’Sullivan.

“Records, history, my first running camp, Leinster schools. Great international competition all erased for another car park.” – Keith Kelly.

“Belfield Track, the site of the WORLD 4xMile WR is being torn up! this is a travesty” – Ciarán Ó Lionáird.

“Heard nothing but great things about Belfield. #saveourtrack. Good luck with this.” – Paula Radcliffe.

The UCD athletics club, which, ironically enough, is experiencing something of a renaissance and beat DCU in the recent Road Relay Championships, hasn’t wasted any time either in launching their “Save Our Track” campaign.

They’ve petitioned UCD president Hugh Brady, claiming they were given “less than 21 hours notice of the closure of the sports facility”, and as it stands “no one has come forward to take responsibility for Tuesday morning’s action, and there has been failure to fully brief on the health and safety issues which their grounds are based on”.

I got an email too from Antoine Burke, one of UCD’s best athletes in the 1990s, who won the high jump silver medal at the 1994 World Junior Championships. Even though he’s now based in Sydney, he feels the pain of someone turning their back on decades of history centred around this extremely valuable facility.

“‘Slippery when wet’ is an unbelievable claim for which to shut the doors of this facility,” says Burke. “To me, it’s like removing a cooker because it’s ‘dangerous when hot’. Try running that by Jamie Oliver.

“Of course it’s slippery! It rains 350 days of the year in Ireland, and the UCD Sports Department has wilfully neglected it for years. This is lowest common denominator thinking at its worst. Fail to maintain a facility for years, then when it’s in disrepair, claim it’s a hazard and needs to be eliminated.

“This attitude seriously undermines the intelligence of the sporting community who’ve valued the UCD track over the past 50 years.”

I could go on here. Even one of my rival sportswriters encouraged me to start digging around (no pun intended, presumably), yet the truth and reality of this situation is staring everyone in the face.

I spoke with Brian Mullins, UCD’s director of sport, on Tuesday. And after he suggested I was presenting him with “rumour and speculation”, he asked not to be quoted on any aspect of the matter – other than to confirm “the track is now closed”.

So, the plan is to build a replacement six-lane track on the Clonskeagh end of the campus, where the majority of other sporting facilities are now positioned, although this is now “subject to funding”.

And as Mullins also told me, “you know the economic situation of this country as well as anyone”.

Indeed I do. So if the funding crisis should have eased sometime around 2060, why dig up the only running facility on campus in the meantime, especially when only minimal funding would have rendered it “healthy and safe”?

There are so many nonsensical aspects to this sorry story that not even a stay of execution would provide a suitable antidote.

And one of the saddest footnotes to it all is that Ciara Mageean, one of UCD’s latest athletic recruits, who originally turned down several high-profile scholarships in the US to study in Ireland, now finds herself without a running track on the campus.

Indeed Mageean, who is just a couple of seconds off qualifying for the London Olympics over 1,500 metres, trained on the Belfield track last Monday evening, probably making her one of the last in the long line of Irish athletes to feel that old, tattered and yet beautifully historical and surprisingly fast tartan surface.

“Don’t it always seem to go,” says Joni Mitchell, “that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.

“They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot.”