Ciara Mageean has had to hit her thirties to reach her athletics peak – just as her late beloved coach Jerry Kiernan predicted.
As an 18-year-old, Mageean won a World Junior 1500m silver medal in 2010 when she was the only non-African athlete to earn a podium spot in any of the men’s and women’s distance races from the metric mile upwards.
But following her stellar junior career which had been guided by Belfast-based coach Eamonn Christie, a serious ankle injury in 2012 led to the Portaferry athlete missing the 2013 and 2014 campaigns after she been been forced to undergo surgery.
Mageean had linked up with Dublin-based Kiernan shortly before her surgery and she says his “wise words” played a massive role in convincing her that she could still forge a successful senior career.
“Whenever I kind of think of the age that I am and the way I’m performing well, I often think back to what Jerry Kiernan told me back in the day,” the county Down woman told BBC Sport Northern Ireland.
“I missed all of my under-23 career due to injury and then I had a pretty rocky twenties in the sport. There were periods of time when I missed a championship because of injury.
“Jerry always told me that it would stand to me that my running age was younger.
“Thanks to that it’s shunted me a little bit. I thought I was going to peak 27, 28, 29…..I’m peaking at 30, 31, 32.”