When she heard the news, Nadia Power refused to believe it. The Dubliner had been walking on air, beaming with pride as she left the trackin Gavle, Sweden last July, having won the first major international medal of her career.
A bronze over 800m at the European U-23 Athletics Championships, something she’d worked towards for years – something which was about to be snatched from her grasp. Powerhad already done a delighted interviewand posed for pictures when an official called her aside, his expressiontelling her the story before the words did: she’d been disqualified. Rule 163.2: obstruction. Power racked her brain, trying to figure out what she’d done wrong, but came up empty. She was shown a replay of an incident halfway through the race, when
https://twitter.com/SportsJOEdotie/status/1150087948446121984
Britain’s
Jemma
Reekie
move
d
across in front of h
er entering
a
bend, at which point Power
put
her arms
out
to protect her
space
.
An eagle-eyed official had been standing at that point and that was it: Power’s name
dropped
from third to last on the results sheet: DQ.
Irish team
managers
Richard Rodgers and Paul McNamara
put in an
appeal, and Power tried her best to put up a front while it
played out
.
“
I didn’t let anything
out, but
inside I was hysterical,
” she says.
“
I was
devastated
.
E
ve
ryone
was avoiding looking at me;
they knew I
was in the worst state ever.”
The
Irish
management
approached
the British team, explaining how their appeal would
argue
that the obstruction Power caused to
Reekie
had little or no effect
given the Briton went on to win gold. “
J
emma
was so good,” says Power. “S
he went to the officials and said
,
‘
I felt nothing, I wasn’t impeded
.
’
”
All the while, Power
sat with teammate Louise Shanahan
who’d been a supportive presence in a time of great stress. More than 90 minutes
later
, Rodgers approached Power with good news: she was, once again, a European medallist.
The stadium was empty when she
finally
got to stand
on the rostrum
, and
Power’s
chief memory after that
was “wanting
to get on the bus and
hide
in case someone came after me again
”.
There was something different about that championship. Power was 21 at the time, and
was just about done with showing up to these things to
simply
take part
.
In 2013 she
was
fifth in the European Youth Olympic final over 1500m. Two years later she got her first taste of the big time at the World U18 Championships in Colombia, but Power failed to finish after being tripped
in
her
1500m heat. In 2017 she made the European U20 1500m final and finished 11th.
Good, but not great.
She admits in those early years she
w
as
sometimes
“happy to be there”
at major championships
but that changed in 2019. “
I was like,
‘
am I just going to
keep turning up and qualifying?’
I decided I was going to believe in myself. I was thinking about a medal
.”
Her progress had been steady over the years, though
it wasn’t a
lways a
smooth
ride
. Power marked herself out as a big talent
in her early teens
by winning a
slew of underage titles and it had
long
been her plan to go to college
in the US
.
In sixth year she
whittled it down to three
options
: Iona College in New York, Providence College in Rhode Isla
nd and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The first two had long traditions
among
Irish athletes, but Power
admits she was
“blinded by the bright lights”
of
Virginia, a much bigger college with incredible facilities.
She was the first Irish athlete to go there – but
her
American dream was
not
as she
’d
imagined
it
.
From the start she was homesick, but her chief worry was how the coach
ramped up her mileage, with hard eight-mile runs
a
daily staple, more than
twice
what she
had
done
back
home
.
She watched as injuries rippled through the team
and
a few
months
later she turned her back on the place for good.
Power had booked flights
to Dublin months in advance
of the Christmas break
but
,
closer the time
,
her
coach
demanded she change the dates to return
to Virginia
two days earlier
,
i
n time for a team meeting. That
would
cost
an
extra €700, so Power chose to fly
back on the
original
date
, which
got
her
temp
orarily suspended from the team and
saw
her scholarship cut by five
percent
.
She faced
a frosty reception
when she returned to Virginia and after a couple of weeks s
he
decided she’
d had enough, booking a one-way flight
to
Dublin
in January 2017. She enrol
led in DCU later that year
and has s
ince been under the guidance of
Enda
Fitzpatrick, who was ousted as long-time director of athletics
last year.
Her times are slowly creeping towards world-class territory. Last summer
Power
lowered her 80
0m
PB
to 2:02.39 and in March
she won the Irish indoor 800m title
.
She
typically does three hard sessions a week: kilometre reps on a Tuesday, fartlek training on a Thursday,
hill
reps on a Saturday. The other days are filled with recovery runs and three times a week
,
she lifts weights under the guidance of
Donie
Fox at Sports Med Ireland.
In recent months,
that gym work has been confined to
her back garden in
Templeogue
, while
most
of her sessions have been done in
Tymon
Park, where she often trains with her boyfrien
d, Dublin hurler James Madden. “
He’s
getting fitter,” she says, “
and I’m getting a lot faster
.”
When the Olympics were postponed until 2021, Power wasn’
t too upset
.
After all sh
e’d been working full-time in an internship
all year
and
she’ll
have much
more flexibility for training
as she heads into the final year of
her marketing degree at DCU.
If she can take another second or two off her PB in the next 12 months, that Tokyo vision will become a reality. “It’s a goal now,” she says, “rather than
the amazing bonus it would have been this year. It’s every athlete’s dream.”
Irish ‘dodgy box’ owners may soon be staring at blank screens as crack downs continue in seven counties. The Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) and Sky have delivered legal warnings to 10 suspected ‘dodgy box’ providers across Ireland in Carlow, Cork, Dublin, Kildare, Galway, Laois and Limerick. The operators are accused of using illegal Internet […]
The 21-year-old, is the national record holder for solving the puzzle blindfolded. 46 other Irish competitors competing at the event in Arnhem, Netherlands later this week. Maynooth psychology student, Kalin Doherty is tipped to win the hotly contested games. In its 22nd year, the event challenges competitors to solving the puzzles in different manners, ranging […]
This is huge! Dublin is set to gain a new €250 million arena after confirmation that pre-planning application has been submitted. The stadium will have an ice hockey rink and will be Ireland’s first dedicated winter sports and entertainment arena boasting an 8,000 plus seated capacity. Announced back in April, the plan is fully backed […]
