INTERVIEW:Eileen O'Keeffe's brother bought her a video about hammer throwing in a £1 shop, her dad built her a throwing circle, and she trained herself, against many obstacles, to become Ireland's Olympic hope. Not that she's bowing to any pressure, writes Mary Hannigan
WITH THE Beijing Olympics drawing ever closer she could do without the pressure that comes with regular references to her as "Ireland's best medal hope", and she could really do with being able to train at the National Athletics Stadium in Santry, but as she fine-tunes her preparations for the biggest sporting event of her life Eileen O'Keeffe is intent on not allowing irritants, major or minor, distract her. "That won't," says the hammer thrower from Callan, Co Kilkenny, "achieve anything".
Still, there was a degree of incredulity in the reaction to O'Keeffe's recent revelation that she has been unable to train in Santry, the "misfortune" heightened by the fact that she chose to live in a house opposite the stadium a few years back for convenience. For now, though, she's having to make her way across the city to Belfield or out to Dunboyne to train, Santry unusable for the woman who finished sixth at the World Championships last year.
If it wasn't hindering O'Keeffe in her build-up to Beijing, the story would be comical, not least the chapter that had her bringing buckets of sand to training in Santry so she could fill in the holes left in the infield after throwing her hammer. The infield was being rented out by Fingal County Council to Eircom League club Sporting Fingal, the sand-filled holes finally resulting in O'Keeffe being told she could no longer use it for training.
Athletics Ireland then persuaded the council to facilitate O'Keeffe by building a new throwing area with a landing area away from the pitch. "They did put up a new throwing area just beside the stadium, which they've been promising for years," she said, "but ended up putting down the wrong throwing surface. I used that once and it flared up an old hip injury." Athletics Ireland has promised "to get the new facility sorted out speedily" - the Olympic Games start on August 8th - but until they do, O'Keeffe will continue to make the trips to Belfield and Dunboyne, neither of which has facilities that replicate those she finds at major championships. "And you want to be replicating that as much as you can," she said.
But since she first took up the hammer a decade ago, at the age of 17, O'Keeffe, largely self-coached, has become accustomed to making her own way in her sport. "It was always very difficult because the majority of throwing facilities in Ireland are on soccer pitches and therefore we are not allowed use them all year round - which was a big problem. Only for my dad building me a hammer circle at home it would have been very hard to keep up my training. There was no hammer coach in my athletics club when I started, but there is one now. When I was abroad competing I always tried to pick up some new technical points to try out and would ask some foreign coaches their opinion on my technique. Over the years I developed a style that worked best for me.
"I often watched videos of the top throwers and would pause it and pick up some new technical ideas that I tried out: some suited me, so I stuck with them. I have exceeded the basic level of coaching that is available in Ireland at the moment and did go abroad for short periods to get some other coaches' opinions on my current style, but the changes they suggested resulted in a major drop in distance so I decided that the style that I developed myself works best for me. I'm very lucky, though, to have Dave Fagan [ a former thrower and fitness adviser to the Irish under-20 rugby team] who works with me on my strength - he is full of knowledge and has contributed greatly to my improvement."
Famously, it was a video on hammer throwing, bought by her brother in a £1 shop, that first introduced O'Keeffe to the sport. But what exactly was it about the discipline that attracted her? "It's such a technical sport and the footwork is so fast and rhythmic. Also to see the hammer sail out so high and so far looks fantastic. Even to this day when I watch it sail out it really lifts my heart. I still get that wow feeling! But yeah, a lot of people thought I was joking whenever I said it was my sport. I think people have a perception that to throw something you have to be a big build and really strong, but that's not the case. The hammer is a very fast, technical event, it's all about rhythm and timing. Initially I was throwing off a sheet of plywood in a field beside the house. I think my dad thought I would get fed up with it after a while but the months went on and I was still trying to throw off this sheet of wood. When the weather was wet I kept falling so my dad then decided to built me a cement circle to throw from beside the house."
Before taking up the hammer, O'Keeffe had tried her hand at several sports, having dabbled in Irish dancing in her youth, playing volleyball for her school and South Leinster and winning medals in "grand prix cycling" at the National Community Games in Mosney. "I started into athletics after all that - throwing events were something different and really exciting to watch. I did discus throwing first and broke the Leinster schools record, which had stood for 23 years. It was a big achievement to break it so I thought that discus was going to be my big thing, but I didn't go on to improve." Her rapid progress in the hammer, though, soon convinced her she had a future in the sport at international level. "I was only throwing the hammer two years and exceeded the qualification for the 2000 World Junior Championships in Chile. When I went there and saw the coaching that my opposition received I was amazed - I had made it there on my own with no coaching. Then I realised I could improve so much more. Four years later I had made the B qualification standard for the Athens Olympics. At that time I was doing my general nursing degree, training by myself and had not taken a professional approach to the sport. I had always said that when I finished college I would give the sport a proper shot."
Having completed her studies, O'Keeffe took leave of absence from her job as a theatre nurse in Beaumont Hospital to train full-time in the build-up to Beijing, with funding from the Sports Council, sponsorship from Rory Larkin of RFL Steels in Naas and her partnership with AIB making the move possible.
"I suppose you only have this time in your life once, when you are able to compete at this level. There will come a day when my sporting career will come to an end, so I think it's important to savour it while I can. But I think when it comes to sport we sometimes have to take a step back and realise that it's not the be-all and end-all, either. Yes, I have made many sacrifices and trained really hard and if success comes my way that's brilliant, but as long as I'm healthy and able to do the sport I love that's the most important thing."
O'Keeffe won't, then, allow what happens in Beijing to make to break her; life will go on regardless. "I just want to throw close to my potential on the day and see how it goes from there," she says. Fretting about it, after all, won't achieve anything.