Gillick to speak on new book at high profile event in Nenagh

By Thomas Conway

At the elite level of sport, success often happens suddenly, and so when it hit David Gillick at the age of 21, he openly admits that he wasn’t ready for it.

“I didn’t deal with it well. I didn’t know how to deal with it,” the 42 year-old says, reflecting on his gold medal triumph at the 2005 European Indoor Championships in Madrid, Spain.

That was Ireland’s first golden disc in a sprinting event in 75 years and it catapulted Gillick into the sporting stratosphere on this island. Instantly he was a household name, being asked for appearances on The Late Late Show and generating a surge in enthusiasm for athletics. Welcome as all of this was, he details the “mental burden” that it inflicted on him. The expectation was huge, the pressure immense.

“Sometimes in sport, we prepare for the setbacks and talk about the setbacks. How do you build yourself back up, etc. But I actually wasn’t prepared for what came with success,” he added.

Gillick’s metamorphosis from talented athlete to national star is documented at length in his new autobiography, The Race: The inside track on the ruthless world of elite athletics, which is co-authored by Cathal Dennehy.

The book is a searingly honest portrait of life at the top level, and Gillick is just as candid over the phone. He comes across as unassuming, personable and above all, perceptive. Gillick has insight. He isn’t afraid to analyse and dissect his own career and he does so somewhat ruthlessly in the book.

Take his assessment of the 400 metres, his signature discipline. Often described as the most attritional event in track and field, Gillick breaks down the attributes required to execute the perfect race. Pace is vital, but so too is that will to push through the pain barrier, he says.

“You’ve got to have speed. After all, it’s a sprint event, so you have to have out and out pace,” he continued, adding: “You also have to have a good engine, because 400 metres is a long time when you’re trying to go full tilt for 44 seconds or 45 seconds. I think strength is a massive part of it as well, because it’s very demanding over the last sixty or so metres.

“But mentally as well, you got to be willing to hurt yourself. You have to be willing to understand that this is going to hurt. I think the mental side of running a 400 is huge.”

It wasn’t until those blistering performances at the European Indoors in 2005 that Gillick realised that athletics might provide a viable career path. A subsequent move to Loughborough in the UK - where he met his wife Charlotte - threw him head-first into the lifestyle of a full-time athlete, where everything matters, from the spikes on your shoes to the food on your plate. He settled there, buying a house and forming friendships. His assiduous dedication to training is staggering, but such is the nature of elite-level athletics.

His experience at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing offers a salutary lesson in how unsparing and cruel sport can be. He underperformed and failed to progress from his heats. However, there is more than a streak of redemption to Gillick’s story. A year later he bounced back to make the final of the 400m at the World Championships in Berlin, finishing sixth. That, if he was forced to choose, would probably be his signature achievement.

The Gillick we know today is the warm and caring trackside figure who conducts post-race interviews with athletes for RTÉ Sport. It’s a job he has keenly embraced and is evidently good at, but he emphasises that it’s not about him.

“I suppose I have that level of empathy and that understanding of what it’s like to be on the track and to walk through that mixed zone,” he says.

“And what it feels like when things go really well, but also when things don’t really well. You have to understand, in that mixed zone an athlete is so vulnerable. It’s so raw and emotive.”

There is more than a hint of excitement in Gillick’s voice when he talks about the current state of Irish athletics. He’s thrilled at how popular the sport has become and how Irish athletes like heptathlete Kate O’Connor and 800-metre runner Cian McPhillips are excelling on the world stage.

He is also animated when he talks about his own event, the 400 metres. The Paris Olympics showed “what we’re capable of as a nation in terms of sprinting,” he says.

Asked whether the women’s 4x400 metre relay team can repeat their heroics and perhaps medal at LA28, Gillick stresses that relay running can be complex and volatile. There are “a number of variables” and everyone “has to be humming at the same time.”

Rhasidat Adeleke, Sharlene Mawdsley and Sophie Becker are all incredible runners and still have yet to reach their respective ceilings in terms of potential.

“When I look at the individuals, there’s definitely room for improvement,” he says.

“There’s definitely the talent there to shave a couple of tenths of a second off. In terms of the relay team, yeah, I think they can make a final, I think they can challenge.”

Next year’s European Championships in Birmingham are massive, he says, and could be Ireland’s most successful ever. Gillick will almost certainly be there, greeting the athletes on the edge of the track and helping them to process it all. He’s been there, done that. Would he do it all again? “Absolutely”.