How a mindset flip has aided Erin Friel’s record-breaking rise and EYOF voyage

It has been a case of mind over matter as Erin Friel readies to board the plane for Skopje.

Friel is a part of the Irish team heading for the 2025 European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF).

Friel will run in the individual 400m on Monday and later in the week is scheduled to go in the medley relay.

When she lines up at the Toše Proeski Arena in Macedonia for her heat, Friel will take the next step in a journey that has been memorable of late.

It hasn’t always been so.

Two years ago at the National Juvenile Championships in Tullamore, Friel reached both the 100m and 200m final.

It was the day of the “blip” she and her coach, Kathryn McDevitt, reference as a notable day.

After finishing eighth both times, Friel took some time to consider options.

McDevitt knew beforehand something was up.

“The week before, she said she was ‘dreading’ it,” McDevitt reflects. “She was at rock bottom.”

Their approach now is “looking forward to the fight”: “She wants a race,” her coach says.

In the 24 months since that weekend in Tullamore when the future was uncertain, Friel’s graph has gone noticeable upwards.

“I don’t think that my training has changed much,” the Letterkenny AC athlete says. 

“I’m more serious about it now. I know that this is what I want to do.

“For a while after coming last, I took a break, but I was really serious when I came back. I just said I’d never let that happen again.

“I hadn’t been enjoying it. Now, I enjoy going to training so much.”

In her formative years, Friel dabbled in sportshall athletics. In her double digits, she joined up with Olympian YAC and competed mainly in cross country.

“I nearly quit first, but then I joined in with Kathryn’s group,” Friel explains. “The difference is massive, but I think the training for the sprinting is actually harder. The speed stuff is hard. You demand a lot of the body very quickly. You can kind of jog a bit in the cross country.”

Erin Friel has had a breakout 2025

Coach McDevitt would regularly text Friel’s mother. “I’ll make a sprinter out of her,” McDevitt often ventured.

For the under-12 Community Games, McDevitt oversaw a group that won the grass relays. Friel, Orla Paul, Emma Bonar and Sophie Ellis won gold and McDevitt’s eye was on Friel from that moment.

“She was getting horsed in cross country, but I knew there was a sprinter there,” McDevitt says.  “The endurance stood to her in fairness.”

In 2024, Friel spent late spring and early summer chasing the clock.

For 13 weekends, she was on road, air and track in search of the magical qualification marks.

“Last year I was sick of racing - I was at it so much,” says the Newtowncunningham native. “I am so excited to go now on Friday. I can’t wait.”

She did competed at the European U18s in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. The Irish sprint medley team of Elena O’Sullivan, Katie Doherty, Friel and Maria Zakharenko ran 2:11.24 for fifth in their heat.

“That was the best experience,” Friel says. “It was my first time going away from home for a week with people I didn’t actually know. Those people were easy to get along with because we were all on the same journey.”

This time is different, though. She will compere in the relay event at the end of next week, but Monday is Friel standing herself on the start line, the fruits of her own endeavour.

“I know that I’m going for myself this year,” she says.

Fourth now on the European rankings list, making the final is the first goal. After that, who knows? 

“I know everyone has the same goals and it’ll be hard, but I think I can do that,” she says the Loreto Secondary School student, who is eyeing a US switch after her Leaving Certificate next summer. 

“The aim this year was to peak early, get a time in indoors and enjoy it.

“The day I got the 400m standard for the EYOF, I shocked myself so much. I didn’t think anyone would get the 400m standard and I definitely didn’t think I would get it.”

She clocked 54.74 seconds to win the U20 400m at the National U20 & U23 Indoor Championships in Athlone. Her time was a Donegal record - and a national U18 record, too.

“I was shocked at the time,” the 17-year-old says. The thought of the EYOF mark didn’t hit initially. McDevitt rang from Apeldoorn, Netherlands - where she was watching the European Indoors on a memorable Sunday with Sarah Healy and Kate O”Connor winning golds and Mark English bagging a bronze - to confirm the news.

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Friel is the holder of the Donegal outdoor 200m record (24.34) and the indoor marks over 60m (7.75), 200m (24.24) and 400m (54.52) - all of which were set this year.

The Donegal outdoor record (52,62) is held by Kelly McGrory, but Friel’s own numbers have fallen rapidly and her own PB over a lap, 54.28, was recorded in Brussels in May.

She trains five days a week and lives a committed life.

“It’s a big commitment, but when I enjoy it as much as I do it’s not as hard,” she says. “I do give up a lot. 

“There are certain things that I can’t do. Like, if my friends are all going somewhere, most of the time I miss out on that. Those are sacrifices that I have to make. Maybe sometimes people can’t understand why I can’t do something or go somewhere, but now it shows.”