Athletics: European Indoor Championships Some traditions are slow to die and Thomas Chamney is the latest in the long line of Irish athletes to come off the American collegiate scene with a growing reputation for indoor running.
Chamney is a student at the famed Notre Dame University, also known in sporting terms as "The Fighting Irish", and that's the spirit he clearly intends showing over 800 metres at this weekend's European Indoor championships.
He was briefly back home in his native Dublin this week, and later today departs for Birmingham with the rest of the 13-strong Irish team. Chamney doesn't jump out as a medal contender, although he is ranked sixth fastest of the 22 entries in his event, having run a personal best of 1:47.82 earlier this month, and his high level of confidence suggests anything is possible this weekend, especially if he makes Sunday's final.
Ireland have won 15 medals at the European Indoor championships, and all but five of those medals were won off the back of an American NCAA collegiate indoor career - by the likes of Eamonn Coghlan, Noel Carroll, Marcus O'Sullivan, Frank Murphy, Mark Carroll and more recently Alistair Cragg.
Chamney is still only 22 and a few years off his peak yet, but with a new personal best - and the experience of running the European outdoors in Gothenburg last summer - he is excited about getting to Birmingham. He ran his 1:47.82 at his home track in Notre Dame on February 3rd, winning by several metres, and reckons his indoor peak is still to come.
"I'm not trying to sound big-headed or anything like that but I buried everyone else in that race," he says, "having hit the front from 350 metres out. And I know I would have run quicker if I'd had a few more athletes to push me.
"Since then my training has been going well. My aim is to make the final and if I have to run a record to do that then I think I'm in the shape. I know I had a disappointing run in Gothenburg last summer, but people don't realise how difficult it is to race a full NCAA season, and carry that on for the summer. So I was very tired going there last summer, not in peak shape, and when it didn't go so well I was frustrated.
"But these championships are different. I'm in the middle of my indoor season, and undefeated in six races. So I'm going there with no negative thoughts, which is why I'm so excited. Everything has gone perfect in terms of preparations and I believe I can run with the best of them over there."
His preparations have included a month-long training spell at high altitude in New Mexico over Christmas, and he's been so meticulous about the season since then. When he got off the nine-hour flight from Chicago on Monday morning he went straight to the track at Santry for a session in an effort to ward off any jet leg. He's also been acclimatising somewhat, given temperatures at South Bend, Indiana - where Notre Dame is located - haven't gone above zero so far this year.
Originally from Clonmel, Chamney went to St Columba's College, Rathfarnham, where his talent soon put him in line to follow the US scholarship route. With the encouragement of his father John, he packed his bags and headed west four years ago. His is still coached by Seán McManus, even though he left the college two years ago for Florida State. Last year proved something of a breakthrough, finishing sixth in the NCAA championships indoors and out, before lowering his outdoor best to 1:46.82, moving him to sixth on the all-time Irish list.
"Of course my coach has been telling me not to underestimate anyone. One of my strengths is being used to hard races in the NCAA, whereas here it's easy for them to go out and run 1:47 when they are running in races where they have rabbits. I think the NCAA really teaches you how to race, while in Europe they are more like time trials.
"So if my heat is slow I'm confident I can out-kick a lot of people. But then a place in the final can always boil down to a tenth of a second. So in all these races you need to have your head screwed on. " The Irish indoor record of 1:47.20, which Daniel Caulfield set in 2001, is definitely under threat this weekend, and if Chamney does break it he may well have an even nicer prize to go along with it.
