Ciara Mageean: Grief gives way to hope as 'Ciara 3.0' plan takes shape with move home
European gold medal winner Ciara Mageean saw her Olympic hopes cruelly taken away from her in Paris but outlines here why she is making the moves to be ready for LA '28
Ciara Mageean is overcoming her Olympic "grief" with a reboot in rehab that will centre on her leading her own team in Belfast.
There were rumours after Paris that Mageean going to call time on her career but the Portaferry star - the reigning 1500m European champion - insisted that going to LA was always in her sights.
The 32-year-old insists it will be all systems go for 'Ciara 3.0' to go for gold at the World Championships in Tokyo next September - thus starting her tilt for Olympic glory in LA in 2028.
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READ MORE: Ciara Mageean 'on the mend' after suffering Olympic heartbreak
Mageean claimed 1500m European Championship gold in June but ecstasy in Rome turned to despair in Paris when a long-standing achilles issue flared up at the worst time. She had two cortisone injections into her ankle but during a heart to heart with her boyfriend Thomas, she made the hardest call of all.
But she will be back, and back for the full Olympic cycle. First up, rehab after surgery, then a shot at the Worlds in 10 months' time.
"With anything, there’s never any guarantees that it will work," she said. "But listen that’s life, I have to be hopeful. There's not going to be any longevity in me continuing the pain that I was in, so it was really my only option and so far 10 weeks in, its been going well.
"The rehab is going in the right direction, the prognosis from the surgeon was that it would take six months until I get to run. When I sat down with my physio, I said, 'I want to focus on the World Champs, tell me if that’s not a realistic goal?'.
"He said, 'no, its later in the season, you already have you’re 1500m qualification and I definitely think that’s a goal that you can aim towards'.
"He did ask me what my goal was in the championships and I grinned - because if you’re going to go, you going to go for gold. You’re going to go and try to get yourself on that podium."
Mageean added: "I have certainly chatted to other athletes in the past who approached Olympic Games knowing it was going to be their last, whereas I knew I've been on an upward tangent for the past few years.
"So I was definitely aiming not to retire after this Olympic Games. I was always determined to continue - and I always will be until the point where, 'OK, I'm not getting faster and I'm going to hang up the spikes'.
"But I will say how it finished has given me extra fire in my belly for this next Olympic cycle. So it didn't change my goal - but the fuel has certainly enhanced.
"A lot of people thought I was going to retire, especially because I was so quiet (after withdrawing from Paris just days before the heats.
"I believe nearly my own father would have preferred it. I can remember my daddy had his arm around me and he’s like, 'right we’ll call it a day...you come home, you go watch the hurling with me, you can get a dog finally and be done with all this'.
"And much to my father’s dismay maybe - no, I know he’ll be delighted - I said, ‘what are you talking about, I’m not retiring yet, there’s another Olympics in four years time and I’ve only gotten faster over the past few years, so I’m determined to be back'.
"This has given me an opportunity - sometimes you need a catalyst for change. The really tough end to the summer made me take account of a few things and say, 'do you know what? I'm making a couple of changes, I’m having the surgery to fix the ankle, I’m moving home to be close to family and friends to build a team around me that will help nurture me on that next goal'.
"I want to really draw on all that strength because I think throughout my career, my connection to home and the pride that I have in the Irish vest has been a super-power.
"And I think for me having my feet back on Irish soil will be a super-power too. I’m really excited for this next chapter in Belfast - and Ciara 3.0. I’m excited for that path going forward."
Thomas reminded her that she was still a European gold medallist - and that it was maybe meant to be that she would go to LA, her great mentor Jerry Kiernan's Olympics.
"In that moment I decided that yes, that Olympic dream was over in Paris but that wasn’t the end of my Olympic dreams - that I was going to focus on another four-year cycle," she said.
"I disappeared, went radio-silent. Everyone wondered where the hell I’d disappeared to - I just needed some time to spend with my family. Maybe a day or two days later I was straight into the doc’s saying, 'when can we arrange surgery' because the sooner I have surgery, the sooner I can get back."
It was a positive step after she had felt empty. "It really is a grieving cycle," said Mageean. "It's a loss - a loss of a dream. I just felt empty, at a loss, not really knowing what to say or even how to feel. I just felt numb. It wasn't even sadness, just emptiness.
"In those moments I felt like I was drowning. It was just a void. But a few people were my rocks that I could clamber onto, and just keep me afloat, and I’m very fortunate to have had them. I just felt numb. It wasn't even sadness, it was just emptiness. I didn't know how to feel."
Mageean hasn't watched the 1500m Olympic final and won't for some time yet. It was tough, but she couldn't watch any athletics for the rest of the season. But she did feel joy for her Team Ireland colleagues who had a glorious Games.
She hugged Rhys McClenaghan, who hails from half an hour from her home place, and told him that she was proud of him. Then she came home. It helped that she was able to go to a friend's hen and to the Camogie All-Ireland final.
But Mageean had decided to make big changes in her career even before her Paris heartbreak. She had decided to break from her New Balance Manchester training group - and from coach Helen Clitheroe. After her Games trauma, Thomas and herself decided that the time was right to move closer to home by relocating to Belfast.
"I'm still a New Balance athlete and I was before I joined that team but no, this is a fresh start with me at the head of the ship and I'm really looking forward to building that really strong team around me," Mageean stated.
"In Paris, when I went through it all, Thomas said, ‘you know what? We’ll move back to Belfast because I think it would be good for you to be close to family and friends, because I haven’t seen you smile in a while’.
"I'd say the thought of moving has been in my mind for a while. It's certainly something that throughout my career I've realised at different points that you evolve and you need different things from the support network around you."
So Mageean will lead her own training group with Thomas, who works with her as her mentor and pacemaker - and with Mark Kirk, who has his own group in Belfast and will act as a sounding board.
She will also draw on the support of the Sport Ireland Institute and the Sports Northern Ireland Institute.
"Now I've realised that I've learned so much throughout my career from the fantastic people who have guided me and the team-mates I've had around me, that I feel fairly self-proficient and self-sufficient within myself.
"The knowledge that I've gained has given me a new lease of life in the fact that I should and can be a leader - and will be a leader in this next chapter of my career going forward."
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