Ciarán Ó Lionáird continues his preparation for the London Olympics...

24 year old Ciarán Ó Lionáird from Macroom in Cork will be representing Ireland in the 1500m in the Olympic Games in London. In 2011, he finished a very credible 10th in  a packed finish in the final of the 1500m in the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea. In early February of this year, he won a indoor grand prix mile race in Boston in 3:56:01. A few days later, he improved on this time by running a new personal best time of 3:54.76 in Arkansas. In March however, he picked up an injury to his Achilles tendon and he has spent the last few months trying to recover.

In a recent article in the Southern Star newspaper, Ciarán confirmed his preparation for the Olympics is going well despite the time lost to injury. In the interview, he said......‘Most other athletes are probably starting to ease up now while I’m pushing harder. What I won’t have is the depth of build-up races in May and June that I would have liked. A lot of guys will get to the Olympics tired having raced a lot trying to chase times and other things. But I will be fresh at the starting line, I’m training well right now and I am managing the injury fairly well. It’s taken a lot longer than I would have liked but I had to make sure that the body was ready to go and was strong enough, and that I wasn’t going to set myself back long-term. I consulted with the doctors here in America and my support staff back at the Irish Institute of Sport in Ireland to make sure that I got the all-clear to resume hard training. It’s going well, I am making progress every day and I’m excited to move forward. It’s not an ideal scenario by any means. But it wasn’t an ideal scenario for me either last year, just getting the time before the World Championships, but it worked out for me there. There are a lot of fellas who have come out on fire this year, in April and May, but are they going to be able to hold that until London? Only time will tell. I am happy that, at least, I have the qualifying time in my back pocket and I can go to London really focused and fresh, and have my training geared towards that specific event. I am still a young athlete and for a while there were talks that I might have to give this year a miss to allow my body to recover from the injury and to make sure that it wasn’t going to be an injury that would ruin the rest of my career. We got all the scans, the tendon healed nicely, from where we were two months ago it progressed a lot better and a lot quicker, and I am fortunate that I am able to give the Olympics my full focus now.’



Ciarán will be featured in the TV programme London Calling on RTE this evening at 10:35pm.

Support from Ciarán's local National School in Kilbarry