SWIMMING: KEITH DUGGAN talks to Wexford's Gráinne Murphy and her coach, Belgian Ronald Claes, who believe the programme and set-up at the University of Limerick are conducive to more success
GRÁINNE MURPHY enjoyed a rare morning off training last Tuesday because of her medal-winning haul in Eindhoven the previous weekend. It wasn’t a case of resting on laurels however: her flight did not touch down in Ireland until after midnight and her coach, Ronald Claes, felt rest would be more beneficial. The lie-on was her main celebration.
The Wexford swimmer claimed two bronze medals at the European Short-Course Championship despite entering the tournament without really altering her seasonal training schedule. So for once, the alarm did not sound for her 5.10 am start at the swimming pool at the University of Limerick. Instead, the routine resumed that afternoon and by lunchtime on Wednesday, when Murphy came bounding through the reception area for her afternoon session, Eindhoven had already been ticked off and consigned to history.
“Well, I was really happy. It was a good experience because I am not as used to short course. (The European Long Course championships in) Budapest was different. That was at the end of the year whereas now I am in the middle of training. But no, I am just as happy with this.”
Murphy’s prolific rise in international swimming is one of the brightly burning stories in Irish sport. Because swimming is such a niche sport, the public has a vague understanding of the hours involved and of just how savagely tough the international competition is. But only Murphy’s family, her close friends and the staff who see her trooping in and out of the Limerick pool day after day can appreciate of just how relentless her programme is.
Claes is pleasant and quiet spoken and, as he cheerfully admits, an often intense presence on the pool deck where Murphy and seven other members of the Swim Ireland programme go through their paces. Claes grew up in north Belgium – just a short drive from Eindhoven and his father coached swimming to a high level for 30 years. By the age of 16, Claes knew if he was going to be involved in international swimming, it would be as a coach rather than as a competitor. Like everyone, he is going to be keeping a keen eye on the Budget tomorrow, keeping his fingers crossed that Swim Ireland’s funding remains in tact. Claes came here three years ago and Murphy has thrived under his stewardship.
“We are waiting like everyone else,” he smiles in relation to the Budget. “But for a sport like swimming, we totally depend on it. It is fair to say Ireland is still playing catch-up with other countries when it comes to swimming. The training we do here has to filter down to the clubs and we need professional people teaching in the clubs rather than mums and dads and volunteers so that the young swimmers are all receiving the same training and technique.
“But as far as this programme goes we have the support staff – physio and race analysis and all of that has been set up. We have a really strong programme now. So it is really important. We have eight different swimmers here now with Gráinne and that is part of the strength of the programme because they all encourage one another and they push one another.”
Murphy was 13 when she made the decision to move from Ballinaboola near New Ross to avail of the facilities in Limerick. She lives with her mother, Mary, from Monday to Friday. Brendan, her father, travels up and down in between running the family hotel business. She goes to school in Castletroy.
“The big thing is that I have been able to split the Leaving Cert over two years. I can cope with the classes and the training that way and the teachers have been very supportive. With the early training, you are always going to be tired but you kinda get used to them and try to recover in the afternoon. The thing is, I wanted to come here and do this and the set-up here is fantastic. The set-up here is brilliant and I like Limerick. I hope to go to college here.”
For previous generations of talented Irish swimmers, the logical progression after school was to take up a scholarship offer in one of the American colleges. While Claes readily agrees Ireland can never hope to emulate the money that the big swimming nations like America and, more recently China, throw at swimming, he does not feel it has to be a disadvantage. As he points out, Irish swimmers on foreign scholarships would not be real priorities as they belong to different nationalities. Here, the programme is tailored to suit swimmers like Murphy.
Claes breaks everything down into seasonal, then monthly, then weekly, daily and hourly blocks. Every minute Murphy spends in the pool is accounted for. Last Wednesday, the air outside is frigid so the pool is busy and Murphy swims slow recovery laps in the half of the pool that is reserved. She will still clock up about nine kilometres over the day. On heaviest days, she can put up 20 kilometres. Repetition, technique, breathing and mental concentration: these are the perpetual requirements for every lap she swims. For Claes, the technique must come before the racing.
“Yeah. I think what you have in Ireland in general – which is not so much fault as fact – is that people race too much. They don’t train enough so they don’t swim technically well enough. If you want to be a top-level international, technique is everything. Then you need to train. Then you need to learn the race. It happens the wrong way round in Ireland. I think we can offer more to swimmers here now than whatever they can get anywhere else.”
Since her exploits in Budapest and Eindhoven, Murphy has been marked as one to watch. She knows a few of her international competitors – she went to Denmark to train with Lotte Friis (to whom she came second to in the European 1,500 metres freestyle final in the summer) and met some of the English swimmers in a training camp in South Africa. But for the most of the year they are just names and time sheets – as Murphy is to them.
It goes without saying that the London Olympic Games remain the glittering prize at the end of the programme that Claes devised upon his arrival. He is certain Murphy has the ability as well as the prevailing conditions that will allow her to continue to challenge the best. “If we didn’t think that, then I think we would stop right now,” he smiles.
But beyond that, there isn’t too much to say about London. “I haven’t really thought about it to be honest,” Murphy says in a way that sounds honest rather than evasive. “I am just concentrating on the events that are ahead of me.”
To talk dreamily of what might happen in London in a year and half’s time would simply be distracting and pointless. Her entire career has been about swimming the next race. “You kind of stick to your own race and to your own plan and not let your mind wander.”
“Well, that is training as well,” Claes points out. “You work with a psychologist and do a little bit of mediation just to get the best out of yourself.”
“It has never happened me,” Murphy protests with a laugh. “I have heard that it does happen. But you just have to focus.”
So far, that concentration has not been a problem. The commitment that Murphy – and her family – are giving the sport has been quietly heroic. In comparison to the mainstream sports here, swimming remains in the niche category and its rewards are uncertain. Around the university campus, Murphy has become a well-known and popular presence and wears her sporting fame lightly. “People come up and say a friendly hello, wish you well,” she says. “It’s nice. And it is good for Irish swimming as well that people are beginning to recognise us and we have a development squad set-up here now and it is good for kids coming through to see what we are doing here.”
For now, Murphy’s future revolves around an 18-month period that is dense with hard work and bright promise. Chances are that the Irish public will hear a lot more about her over that time. Elite swimmers have to cram so much of their talent and work into a condensed time frame. Already, she has distinguished herself as one of the brightest Irish sporting talents to emerge for many years but now is not the time to stand still and savour that goodwill.
“Whatever about expectation, we can’t think about that,” Claes says gently.
“Of course it is great that people here are enjoying what she is trying to do. I don’t think Gráinne is swimming for anyone other than herself. It has to be that way.”
