Top Mayo athlete Michaela is looking to the future

MICHAELA Walsh has written off 2020 in terms of track and field activity. The 21-year-old Swinford athlete, who is a second year student in DCU studying PE and science, has never been busier as she tries to balance study and training at her home in Swinford.

While the Covid-19 crisis has hit most sports hard, it may not be a totally wasted year for Michaela as she believes the work she puts in - and she is working as hard if not harder than if she was taking part in competitions - will stand to her next year.

"Because all the competitions have been stopped due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it means that I have to work even harder at training to compensate for what I am losing out by no being competitive," said Michaela, who is literally heading from the training field to the class room, training twice daily and taking tutorials online.

"We have exams to take and a lot of assignments to get in so there is a fair bit of online work, but so far I have been able to cope with both," she said.

Michaela has also been fortunate that her training ground facilities for her two major events - shot put and hammer - is very close by, while she also received tremendous support from the Swinford Health Hub Gym, who have given her access to vital equipment for strength and conditioning.

Said Michaela: "Athletics Ireland gave us the heads-up about the likelihood of a lockdown so I was able to plan ahead and I am really grateful to Shelley and the Swinford Health Hub Gym who have given me the loan of equipment so I have my own gym at home and a training ground close by."

She is also in contact with her coaches through Zoom, both in Dublin and locally, so there is no shortage of expertise available to her during her period of isolation.

"My coaches are in touch on Zoom and watch my training sessions, and they can give me advice on a few things I need to work on.

"It is almost the same as having them there beside you so I'm not losing out in anything in terms of coaching. In fact, I'm probably doing more at home than I would be doing in college."

But she is missing out on a few competitions which have either gone by the board or are unlikely to take place.

"The European winter throws in Portugal was one I was really looking forward to and then Universities are coming up and that is disappointing to miss, while I would also be in England later in the summer for the National Senior Championships."

On the positive side, she is getting to grips with her studies and also working on some of the weaknesses in her sport as well as doing a bit of baking and gardening to relax.

"I have the house baked out of it! Yeah, I enjoy baking and spending time in the garden so I'm in a great place really.

“If I can work on the weaknesses in my throwing this year then it should stand to me next year when hopefully I will be stronger and better, but this year is more or less a write-off."

Michaela was 10 years of age when she first took up that ball of metal (now weighing four kilograms or 8.8 lbs for senior women), and she really has never looked back since.

A firm fan of Katie Taylor, Michaela is hoping that she will follow the example of Katie by making her sport more popular with girls.

"Katie has really brought female boxing to a new level and I'd like to do something similar by getting more girls involved in my sport, which is really a minority sport," she said.

Michaela wasn’t a bad Gaelic footballer or soccer player and was a very good runner before she took to the shot put and hammer, and the records have simply tumbled in the last five years in particular.

"I loved the team sports and I really enjoyed running but the injuries began to mount up and I wanted to take my athletics to a higher level, so it just wasn't possible to do other sports as well.

"I was at a meeting when my mum suggested I try the shot put so I had a go and a local coach (Michael Heneghan - he is still her shot put coach; Paddy Kelly is her hammer coach) spotted me and asked me to join the club and it really went from there."

It certainly did, and it has a long way to go before Michaela Walsh reaches her full potential. There is more to come, a lot more. Watch this space for 2021.