AGAINST THE CLOCK: How Mark English and Eilish Flanagan achieved their Olympic dream

Finn Valley Athletic Club’s Brendan Boyce qualified for the 50k walk at the Tokyo Olympics back in 2019, when the Milford native came sixth in the World Athletics Championships in a time of 4:07:46, thus becoming the first Irish athlete to book his tickets.

Ahead of the June 29 deadline last month, Eilish Flanagan, who  recently joined the club with her twin sister Roisin, and Mark English had yet to cement their places.  

Flanagan, 25, is from Gortin, Co Tyrone, and  competes in the 3,000m Steeplechase. The former Sacred Heart College, Omagh, pupil came through the ranks at Omagh Harriers before earning a scholarship at Adams State University in Colorado after impressing with Carmen Runners AC in Tyrone.  

English, 28, from Letterkenny, is a three-time European medalist, who took part in the Rio Olympics five years ago. A doctor at the Mater Hospital in Dublin, English worked in the hepatobiliary team on the last full rotation of his intern year before taking a break to focus his efforts on Olympic qualification.

Patsy McGonagle is the chairman of Finn Valley AC, having taken charge of the senior Irish team at four Olympic Games, six World and six European Athletics Championships.

This is their story:

Saturday, June 26
Santry, Dublin
Eilish Flanagan finishes a brave second behind Michelle Finn in the 3,000m steeplechase at the Irish Championships. Flanagan set the pace in her attempt to earn a last-ditch Tokyo qualification having gone into the weekend 59th in the Tokyo rankings with the top 45 set to earn qualification. She finishes in 9:46.52 - just under six seconds outside the Northern Ireland record she set in the US a month beforehand. Her performance was expected to move her up the Olympic qualifying list but unlikely to be enough for the all-important top 45.  

Eilish Flanagan: I knew it wasn’t going to be enough. Another athlete, Kerry O’Flaherty, mentioned to me they were putting on a meet in Switzerland on the Tuesday. I knew it was on but wasn’t aware there was a steeplechase. I was determined to get there. I was on the phone to Patsy, texting telling him there was a meet in Switzerland. I told him I’d really like to get in there. One more shot. I wasn’t ready to throw in the towel. The opportunity was still there. It was very last minute. I went home. I was confident, with his contacts, he could get me in. 

Stranorlar, Co Donegal
Patsy McGonagle: Tokyo really wasn’t on the radar initially for Eilish. I was looking further down the track.

In less than a fortnight Mark English has chased the Olympic standard of 1:45.20 for the 800m three times - at Sollentuna, Sweden, winning untested in 1:45.70 before in Spain at the Meeting Madrid, missing out by .02 seconds, then winning in Karlstad, Sweden. 

He had yet to make the standard, so will travel to Germany having decided not to attend the nationals in Santry. If he doesn’t reach the standard ahead of the closing date of June 29,   there might be an avenue to Tokyo via the world rankings, with the top 48 to qualify. 

Sunday, June 27
Leverkusen, Germany
English has just finished third in the men’s 800m at the True Athletes Classic in Leverkusen.
Mark English: My immediate feeling was that I didn’t make the standard. Then I heard on the stadium intercom “Mark English, Mark English, Olympic Standard, Olympic Standard.” It was in German so I didn’t understand what exactly was being said. 

I asked a German who was in my race, Marvin Heinrich, did he know what time I had run. He said 1:45.5. At that point I threw my water bottle on the ground. 

I was so annoyed. I wanted the standard so badly. Part of my mind was thinking I might scrape in on the rankings. I was within the top 40 but now 47th in the rankings. Funny things can happen in rankings as deadlines approach. I couldn’t leave anything to chance. 

After going for a run on the indoor track I went into the stadium gym and lifted some weights, to help recovery. I knew I had another shot. One last shot.  

Sunday, June 27
Gortin, Co Tyrone
Eilish Flanagan: I still hadn’t heard from Patsy about Switzerland. I waited about all day. Googling flights. The meet. The weather. I went for a run to clear my head. My mum and sister were going to see my granny. I told them to go on ahead. I was waiting and waiting.

Stranorlar, Co Donegal
Patsy McGonagle: The Swiss national championships were on. I couldn’t get in contact with anyone over there. Ringing, ringing, ringing. Then, eventually, I did and Terry McHugh rang me back. It wasn’t the news we wanted. Terry competed in five Olympics in javelin and even tried his hand at the bobsleigh in the Winter Olympics. He’s based in Switzerland. If he couldn’t get Eilish in, nobody could.

Gortin, Co Tyrone
Eilish Flanagan: On Sunday evening, Patsy got back to me: ‘Look Eilish, it’s full. There’s a waiting list. It’s too late. Sorry’. I got off the phone and started bawling. A breakdown. Home alone. I was so upset. The opportunity, a last minute opportunity was there but I couldn’t avail of it. I composed myself and called my coach Damon Martin at Adam State University. I looked for more races knowing there wasn’t going to be any.  

Stranorlar, Co Donegal
Patsy McGonagle: Someone is out. Eilish can enter.

Gorteen, Co Tyrone
Eilish Flanagan: The phone rang. Patsy. He said someone has dropped out and they could bunk you in. “Do you want to go?,” he asked. “Yes! I’ll book a flight right now,” I replied. There was one option, 8:30am Monday from Dublin to Zurich. I was going to get the night bus that night. I checked what time. There was no night bus.

Monday, June 28
Dublin airport
Eilish Flanagan: My mum took me to Dublin airport, leaving the house at 4:30am. I flew to Zurich.

Valencia, Spain
Mark English: I flew from Germany to Valencia, then made my way on to Castelló. I always felt Spain was my best shot. I knew the standard that was being run. I’d checked the weather and the wind was like 4km per/hour and the race was at 9pm. So long as someone took the race out, the standard would be met. It was a nerve-wracking experience.  

Zurich, Switzerland
Eilish Flanagan: I landed in Zurich and boarded a train to Lucerne. All I kept thinking was I had to do whatever it takes. At this stage I thought I have to do this now. So many people have helped me. I cannot let them down.  

Castelló, Spain
Mark English: I checked into the hotel and only learned I was rooming with two other people. I checked out and booked another one on my own. I needed proper preparation. I was now 48th in the rankings. I needed to make the standard.  

Tuesday, June 29
Lucerne, Switzerland
Eilish Flanagan: I didn’t know the start list till that morning. That was probably better.  

Castelló, Spain
Mark English: It was a long day. The race was at night and it was only 50-odd hours since my previous race. I watched a bit of Netflix, the 'In the Name of the Father' movie, on the laptop. It was a holiday in Spain, that Tuesday, and it was a nightmare trying to get anything. I would usually eat three-and-a-half hours before I race. When I went into the town nowhere was open, bar a tapas, which I didn’t want before a race. 

After about half an hour walking around I found a place that only served burgers. I opened Google Translate and typed ‘no burgers. Bread, rice or pasta please?’. They had none of that. I had to tell him I wanted the burger buns without the burgers, so got six of them and loaded them into me. I needed carbohydrates. As pre-race meals go, it was pretty bland.  

Stranorlar, Co Donegal
Patsy McGonagle: I just told Eilish to give it her all. Leave it all on that track.

Lucerne, Switzerland
Eilish Flanagan: I was relaxed and knew if I could execute what I wanted to do I would have a chance. Of course there’s still pressure. A decent time would get me up those rankings.

In 2017 McGonagle made the decision he would not be leading the team in Tokyo, having initially been appointed to do so post Rio. “The fire had gone out of me,” he said. But Finn Valley AC, where he was a founder member in August 1971, and its members remain his lifeblood. 

For a man who spent the bulk of his 73 years  trackside around the world, he’s now stuck in a pokey office in Stranorlar, where you literally couldn’t swing a cat, watching his hopefuls.  

Chris McNulty, the club’s media officer, was frantically  searching for a stream from Lucerne since lunchtime. Instead, now in the deep afternoon, a tracker will have to do, tracking Flanagan’s splits. 

She had to run a time in the region of 9:43 to be in the mix. Numbers were popping up, the tracker was difficult with times not sequential, but she was doing well. She was in the ballpark.  

Lucerne, Switzerland
Eilish Flanagan: I was hoping the race would be a faster pace. It was fast enough, though.  

Stranorlar, Co Donegal
Patsy McGonagle: We were pressing refresh on the computer, f5, f5, f5. It was unclear. We didn’t even know if the race was actually finished.

McGonagle is agitated. Grainne Campbell, marketing officer for Finn Valley, is trying to do a day’s work. She is relatively new to the role, wondering if it was going to be like this all the time. Whilst still awaiting confirmation of the time from Switzerland, McGonagle dunks his head off a glass partition. 

He’s still agitated. “Calm down,” he’s told. “This is the bloody Olympic Games,” he replies. He takes a walk, pacing up and down the hallway and up flashes the confirmed time. 

“Nine, Forty-two, Seventy-one,” shouts McNulty. McGonagle takes a second or two to compute things. He carefully puts his spectacles back on. 

Stranorlar, Co Donegal
Patsy McGonagle: She’s in the mix. I’m not certain she’s made it but she’s certainly in the mix.

Lucerne, Switzerland
Eilish Flanagan: I was chuffed to put together a race I was happy with, better than the Irish Senior Championships. I   didn’t know if I had done enough, though. It could still go either way.

Stranorlar, Co Donegal
Patsy McGonagle: I got a call from a leading IAAF official to tell me Eilish has done enough. I don’t want to tell Eilish she’s nailed this until I’m 100 per cent sure. I thought ahead about Mark. I wasn’t confident he would make the standard.  

Castelló, Spain
Mark English: At the track, I chilled and lay down on the high-jump mat. I did my warm-up. I told myself I would run the standard. There were Spanairds in the race and they’d run their national championships that weekend. They didn’t have their standard yet, neither did Algerian Yassine Hethat, with an Alergian pace-maker, which meant the race was set up to be fast. I hit the bell at about 49 or 50 seconds. I was on course.

Stranorlar, Co Donegal
Patsy McGonagle: He was running a good race. I was calm.  

Yassine Hetha wins with English in second place. The cameras focus on the Algerian, who is waving his national flag and his time is the only confirmed time. McGonagle’s phone rings. He takes a walk out of the office. English’s time appears. It looks good.   Now, McNulty is the one computing. It’s an Olympic standard and it’s a new Irish record, beating David Matthews’ record that has stood since 1995. “One. Forty-five, Seventy-one,” yelps McNulty. No sign of McGonagle. When he returns to the office he learns the news.  

Stranorlar, Co Donegal
Patsy McGonagle: I was delighted. He got it. He got it!

Castelló, Spain
Mark English: I knew when I finished I was within a second of the winner and that was enough for the standard at least. 

I was as happy as I’ve ever been after a race. I didn't know anything about breaking the Irish record till later on. Patsy called me and told me he almost had a heart-attack waiting on my result to come through.  The month of June, for me, was a fairly stressful one in trying to get the standard. I wouldn’t have made it via the rankings. Chasing from race to race.  It worked out in the end.  

Wednesday, June 30
Zurich, Switzerland
Eilish Flanagan:  My coach sent me a screenshot on Whatsapp. I knew it was the world rankings but I didn’t want to click into it. It was a long day, travelling for a 7pm flight home. My phone was going in and out of coverage.

Patsy text me that evening: “You’re in.” I wanted to hold off until the official announcement. Then it was everywhere. I didn’t even tell my mum but she knew. I was in. I couldn’t believe it. I was delighted. It took me years to get to this point. Thank God Patsy got me into that meet in Switzerland.  

Stranorlar, Co Donegal
Patsy McGonagle: Her determination gave me determination. Eilish and Mark are at different times of their lives, but they have the same dreams. It was a fairly emotional couple of days and for it all to come together, it’s just brilliant. Jesus sir, two athletes qualifying for the Olympics in the space of a few hours on the last day for qualifying. The first and then the last two to make Team Ireland. That might never happen again anywhere.

It’s almost midnight. There’s a whiteboard in the Finn Valley mapping out the ‘Finn Valley 50’ book which is planned to mark the club’s golden anniversary this August. It contains names and events from the past from the present. McGonagle gazes at it. Boyce, Flanagan and English’s names are going through his head.

Patsy McGonagle: “Throw up the names there sir. They’re headed for Tokyo.”  

His fire will never go out.