Harum-scarum mile man

Gothenburg, August 1995

THE high point of a hard season. Looking back now he can laugh at himself and his stroppy attitude and his big talk. In your face. Santry style.

He'd just come off the track and somewhere under the wavy stand structure of the Ullevi Stadium he was explaining how this 1,500 metre World Championships semifinal had worked itself out, how he, Niall Bruton, had been up there knocking shoulders with Morceli and Cacho, how he'd finished between them, how if the chips fell right he might be going home with some medal in his pocket.

Those sort of chips seldom fall the right way just because you wish for it to be so. Anyway, those moments of bleary, sweat drenched optimism after the semi final were the high point of the year.

I'd say in Gothenburg that when I got to the final I just sort of said, Screw everyone. I've done it. All season things had been wrong. People were getting into my face about this or that. I wasn't happy. Then I got to the final. I'd say I just put two fingers up then. I should have used it better."

He'd had no real plan for the season, which in hindsight was just as well given the series of setbacks, injuries and stresses which befell him. He'd gone to the World Championships in Gothenburg with just three 1,500 metre races under his belt, hadn't spoken to his American coach, John McDonnell, since May and was generally on settled, stressed and fed up.

He finished second last of the 12 finalists in Gothenburg, but salvaging something from such a deeply depressing season provided some momentum.

Without turmoil and upset and aggro Niall Bruton might just be a world class runner. Dammit. Even carrying all those burdens, he'd reached a world final.

At least when you get to a big final people start to notice you. You can come home and think that you completed with the top 12 in the world. You think about that every now and then. Mainly though, you just get on with it."

Torrance, Los Angeles, March 17th 1996

NOTHING in Torrance expect roads, the sound of the Pacific, a Marriot hotel, an oil refinery and a grey shopping mall which stretches from here to eternity.

Niall Bruton's hotel room is littered with the flotsam and jetsam of the travelling runner. Spikes. Shoes. Shorts. Singlets. Lots of water bottles. One untouched bagel.

He's just run a 5K road race to help Torrance celebrate the Irish national feast day. Came in fourth. Happy enough to be on the threshold of the season, Olympic season, just getting on with it.

Way down below, the teeming arterial highways of southern Los Angeles are carrying cars to a million destinations. The foreground is filled with shadowy backlots which give way off on the horizon to sun gleaming skyscrapers.

This America, this scene drawn from cinema cliche, this is the America which Niall Bruton thought he was coming to when he left St Aidan's CBS in Whitehall at the turn of the decade. Fayetteville in Arkansas wasn't what he had bargained for. He grew up fast.

Most Americans on athletics scholarships go on recruitment visits to the place they are going to college. I just arrived here, me and another Irish fella, and that was it. "Here's your room. Both of you in here. See you at training at three thirty."

That first year at the University of Arkansas nearly broke him. He shared a room with Nigel Brunton. The pair made each other homesick. On the track, the friendly Mayoman, John McDonnell, who had recruited them with such easy charm, had metamorphosed into the martinet who had become the most successful college coach (in any sport) in the US.

Fate might have spared Bruton this. He had discovered running almost by accident. He grew up following Spurs on the TV and the Dubs in Croke Park. He played soccer with St Kevin's and GAA with Whitehall Colmcilles and was happy with his lot, day dreaming that someday a trial in England might lead to a life in sport.

Then Peter McDermott, the school athletics coach, started taking note of the lithe strength of the front runner at training sessions and coaxed him out onto cross country and track teams.

Soon Niall Bruton was being fetched out of classes to run for the school, and by the age of 17 had regretfully said goodbye to the soccer and GAA clubs. Arkansas beckoned.

We were so homesick that year. Nigel especially. We used to have a race on Sundays and afterwards we'd phone home. It got so bad that Nigel couldn't phone home some weeks, and if anyone rang I had to say he wasn't in. Nigel was a guy who got beaten by the American system. He was faster then me in school, but he just went backwards over here. I don't think John McDonnell even knew that we were homesick."

Culture shock. McDonnell made Bruton lose his earring. Put alcohol off limits. Women too. Bruton bristled. It wasn't that he was looking to raise hell in Fayetteville, Arkansas, just that when he detected a wall his instinct was to go through it.

Yeah. I think John McDonnell was used to people just doing what he said. Coming from the northside of Dublin, I couldn't help myself but to give him a bit of lip. I'm a bit older now, I realise what he was at, but I found him hard to take. I went against him on everything."

The low point came when McDonnell threw Bruton out of a team training session and Bruton responded by flinging his spikes at the coach. Bruton had stayed in the States over a Christmas to keep up his training. In January, the team came back from holidays and McDonnell set about getting them back into shape. Bruton, tired from a heavy schedule anyway, dropped out of the session, then got thrown out, then blew tip.

"You should have seen his face. I don't think he knew what to make of it all. That's the way it was, though. Always at each other know now I'd have done things differently, but he helped me greatly with the running and helped me to mature. I was very young.

The running saved Bruton. His times improved dramatically and he made the Arkansas cross country team in his first year. As his talent grew, so the chances of his north side lip getting him into big trouble diminished.

Still, Niall Bruton is a harum scarum type of athlete. Things just happen to him. He gets spiked regularly in races. In Rome this year he didn't get spiked, but smashed a bottle on his shin afterwards anyway. He gets sick every season. Last year's debilitation was followed up by a chest infection early this summer. In the spring, he was in a car crash and felt off for a little while.

The adjustment to the post college athletics scene last year was almost as traumatic as his first year at third level.

I just couldn't handle it. In college you got injured and you were looked after. Felt a twinge in your leg and they looked after you. I never really realised that John McDonnell's wage and his job depends on being successful with the college team. That's about it for him.

"Once you finish on the team he doesn't really want to know you. That was a big shock to me. I thought he was my coach, even when I left college. I'd go along and tell him that I wasn't feeling great and he'd ask me what I thought he was supposed to do about it. It took me a long time to cop on that I was on my own.

"I had terrible rows with him after I left. Last year I was feeling bad in the spring and I wasn't getting on well. So I left Arkansas in May, went to a World Championship final and never spoke to him or heard from him until September when I went back to Arkansas. I had a big row with him then and it settled down. We get on alright now."

Once again he has fallen back on his talent. Life on his own without the support system of a major college athletics programme has been an adjustment. He has bought an apartment in Fayetteville. Signed a deal with Asics. Got a contract with Michael Johnson's agent, Brad Hunt, in Colorado. He won another Mill rose mile in Madison Square Garden this year. Money hasn't been a problem.

"It's weird sometimes. It's always at the back of your head that this will end and you'll have to go out and get a job doing something. And then this money starts coming to you. Good money for indoor races and you feel as though all you've done is run for it. I've no classes to go to anymore. Just train and rest.

"I feel sometimes as though I should get a job. But I don't need one this is my job. We went out for a run here this morning, out of the hotel and suddenly we came to the ocean. Just like that. It's not a bad job."

He gets ready to head to the airport with his friend, Ruben Rayner throwing bits and pieces into an Asics kit bag. He's heading to Dallas for a few days break and then back to Arkansas and the resumption of almost daily contact with Peter McDermott. He grabs a handful of bagels before leaving the hotel, slings his bag into the car.

"We late Ruben? What time is it? When's the flight?"

Harum-scarum.

Dublin, July 12th, 1996

LAST phase of the Olympic countdown. He's been happy with his form this past couple of weeks. A month or so back in Ireland has buoyed him up a bit.

Things still happen to Niall Bruton, though. A heavy chest infection is just vanishing. He's getting spiked as often as a running track does. There's been problems with meets. He was supposed to go to Stockholm to compete, but things got messed up so he stayed home. He was scheduled to be in London last night. Instead, he was on a plane travelling to Arkansas.

There's been some hassle with Michael Johnson and the meet promoters. It's not my business, but I missed those two meets. That's a hassle. It's not me that's looking for 70 grand. I could do with one more race."

There are clouds, but there is silver lining too. Last Friday night in Oslo he ran a personal best of 3:53 for the mile. He finished down the field, staring at Morceli's back as usual, but he felt right, hungry for more.

He got some good training done in Atlanta with the Irish team during the late spring. Took a while to feel the benefit though. On the night in Rome when he cut his leg open with a bottle he finished the race, weak, gasping and pale. He's been working on his strength though, running longer splits and more of them.

Peter McDermott, who once pulled him out of classrooms in St Aidan's, has been with him all along. They'll be in Arkansas until late this month putting the finishing touches to the campaign.

He's getting his head right too. He's been working with a sports psychologist to get the clutter and distraction out of the way. Learning to relax and to visualise running faster and to sharpen the focus.

He4 worried not so much about the racing in Atlanta as the preparations for racing. In the bath house humidity, just walking around and doing everyday things can take a lot out of an athlete. Keeping his strength and keeping hydrated will be a priority. Out on the track, with Morceli deprived of a pacemaker and times likely to be slower, he'll just be hoping that anything can happen.

He's getting impatient and hungry. He's sick of Morceli and the sight of his scrawny shoulders crossing the line ahead of him.

"I was going to watch him running in Nice there the other night. Then I decided I'd seen enough of him so I just went out instead."

His sponsors have offered him a hotel room for the duration of the Games, but he has opted for the clam our of the Olympic Village.

"It's my first Games. Maybe I won't do it again, but for the first Games I want to be in there. You need to focus, but you need to get the feel of it all too.

First Games. By Sydney 2000 he will have graduated to the rank of true contender, a lord of the track. For now, though, the Olympics will benchmark his progress and accelerate his confidence.

Sophomore year. These past 12 months out on his own testing the waters, hasn't gone badly all things considered. He learning he's getting quicker and he's confident enough to get stroppy with the world. A young man still learning the job getting by on lots of northside lip and loads of talent.