In the 12.34 seconds it took Cyréna Samba-Mayela to win the silver medal in the 100m hurdles at the Paris Olympics all of France held its collective breath – then let it go in euphoric relief.
On the last night of the track and field, in the third last individual event, Samba-Mayela had just won their first and only Olympic medal in athletics, saving the host nation from any murmur of the diabolique and surely some blushes too.
From the Paris city suburb of Champigny-sur-Marne, half-an-hour train ride from the Stade de France, many of her family and friends were there to witness her ecstatic moment, as was her coach, John Coghlan. Only he had suitably mixed sentiments.
Not just that Samba-Mayela was a mere .01 away from Olympic gold, won by Masai Russell from the US in 12.33, but that Jasmine Camacho-Quinn from Puerto Rico, who Coghlan also coaches, was third in 12.36. Camacho-Quinn was also the defending champion, Coghlan having already coached her to Olympic gold in Tokyo.
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Think about that, how Coghlan, the 46-year-old from Dublin, now has the full set of Olympic medal winners, in the same sprint event, on his coaching resume. And if he’s still relatively unheralded within Irish athletics, that’s in part because he felt moving away from it was his only route to truly succeeding as a coach.
So for the last four years he’s been based in Orlando, working full-time with his small band of elite sprinters, and fast becoming the envy of other nations with similar Olympic aspirations.
“I’d love to coach in Ireland again at some stage, because the talent is definitely there,” Coghlan says. “I always think back to what Arthur Lydiard said, there’s a potential Olympic champion in every village in the world, that’s 100 per cent true.
“It’s just a case of identifying that talent, then developing it with the right coaching, right nurturing. High-level coaching will always produce high-level athletes. People talk about systems and structures and all this complicated stuff. It’s not that complicated at all.
“Like I’m sure there’s other talent as good, maybe even better, than Rhasidat Adeleke in Ireland. It’s just a case of finding it, putting them in an environment where they can be successful, around other athletes with the same mentality, and Ireland could be winning Olympic medals for sure. I really do believe that.”
Like his athletes, Coghlan is winding down after a long season, Samba-Mayela and Camacho-Quinn both racing at this weekend’s Diamond League final in Brussels. At 23, Samba-Mayela was the youngest of the medal winners, and first approached Coghlan this time last year, keen to tap into the success he’d already brought to Camacho-Quinn.
“It’s obviously great to get two athletes on the Olympic podium,” he says. “But there’s still that part of you wondering ‘what if ...’ Like, Jasmine was just .03 away from another gold. If such small things like that had gone a little bit differently.
“ ... But there’s incredible depth in the quality of women’s sprint hurdling right now, and Cyréna has really come on this year (she also won the European title in Rome.) Sometimes when you get successful in one event like that, the one danger is you get a little bit typecast, when I still like to coach other sprint events too.
“At the same time there’s only so many you can have in the group, certainly at a world-class level. You actually have a bit of a problem if you have too many running fast. It’s almost like they become rivals, ‘now you’re stopping me’. You think that’s a good problem to have, but it’s actually not.”
The story of his coaching journey up to this point has been told before: as a former sprinter himself and self-confessed “nerd” of the sport, Coghlan’s first break came back in 2000, while studying sport and exercise science in University of Limerick when he did an internship in the US with Loren Seagrave. Among those who Seagrave coached were world 100m record holder Donovan Bailey of Canada and Pauline Davis-Thompson from the Bahamas, the 2004 Olympic 200m champion.
Seagrave was by then also coaching Susan Smith, still the Irish record holder in the 400m hurdles, and his brother Peter Coghlan, who likewise still holds the Irish record in the 110m hurdles.
“I became totally fascinated by how you could make these changes in training, and improve so much. That time with Loren Seagrave was a massive learning experience, and he’s still a mentor to me.
“After that I was tipping away in Ireland, still competing a little bit myself, started coaching my own group that included Paul Hession, Brian Gregan, athletes like that. Then around 2014 the reality was I couldn’t afford to do this any longer, part-time. Not in Ireland.”
After another internship at the IMG Academy in Florida, Coghlan then went to coach full-time in China, before returning home to take up a role as full-time fitness coach to Meath GAA, before fate intervened. His old colleague Paul Doyle, one of the top agents in athletics, had an athlete in his books looking out for a new coach. Her name was Jasmine Camacho-Quinn.
“I always had the itch to get back into athletics, get back to a higher level. That turning point for me was going to Orlando, to coach full-time, in December 2020. Then eight months later I’ve coached an Olympic champion. But it’s the usual story, 20-something years of hard work to become that overnight success. I’ve definitely done a lot of learning along the way.”
Coghlan’s views on the state of Irish athletics, particularly athletics coaching here, have always been frank, and he’s had “zero” approach from anyone in Athletics Ireland since moving to Orlando.
“At this stage it’s kind of what I expect,” he says. “Funny enough, other countries have come to me, said they’re interested in what I’m doing. But I’d be very interested to see or know what is the overall revenue that Athletics Ireland receives from its various sources, and how that money is spent. I get the feeling there is money there for more coaching, it just needs to be distributed differently. Because there’s probably huge wastage, in some areas.
“You also have to bring in some accountability. I’m pretty well paid for what I do, through various sources, athletes’ sponsors, but I’ll have pretty large bonuses, based off of athletes’ performances. If they don’t perform well, I think it’s fair enough I don’t get paid that much.
“Not that I go out every day thinking ‘oh, I want this athlete to run well to make money’. It’s a personal challenge to myself, I see every athlete I take on as a project, this human being I want to make run as fast as possible.
“I think the coaches here are doing a good job, and I respect and admire what they’re doing. But if they really want to get to that level, there are a couple more steps to go.
“It is very difficult if you’re not professional, because the amount of time you need to put it. Like we’re in good weather, we’re sprinters, we’re out there doing lots of repetitions, doing a lot of technical analysis, could be out on the track for three hours. But we’re not trying to rush it, trying to get home. We don’t need to be up the next day. Because this is our job.
“It’s very difficult to do that in Ireland if you’re operating in an amateur environment. I did a watered-down version of that, it will get you so far, but how can you expect to beat the best if you’re not doing it at the same level? It’s well intentioned, but you’re only codding yourself.”
