Not many would have pegged Martyn Irvine for a gold and a silver at the World Track Championships judging by his performance at the Summer Olympics. 14th place did not flatter him. To his credit, Irvine was extremely honest on his blog, describing the utter dejection he felt after his race and his pride for having competed for Ireland. From that failure today's success was born:
At this stage I was a blubbering mess which I think RTE got on camera … I couldn’t hide my disappointment. It all hit me like a sack of shit and I realized that my perfect race that I’ve dreamed about wasn’t going to happen. Some people don’t like the Omnium and consider it an event of averages. But, there is a huge mental element to Omnium. If you’re lying first overnight, you gotta keep your cool. If you performed badly you gotta pick yourself up. For me, it was the latter. I had to put the bad elimination behind me and focus on my stronger events on day 2. Luckily, I’m used to this because my pattern during the qualification was going into day 2 down the GC and making may way up in the pursuit, scratch and kilo. A respectable result wasn’t to far away.
I was so proud to represent Ireland and be part of team Ireland and if I inspired a small few kids to take up cycling that makes me even happier. This journey was about putting Irish track cycling on the map. It was about getting the next generation to get into the sport earlier and go places quicker and with more support and facilities than I did. Hopefully I partially achieved that goal. So, the plan for the moment is to take a rest, get a holiday in somewhere nice and then refocus on the next goal……. There’s always another goal!
[h/t Jon Coates]
