Delay is just another bump on my road to Tokyo: Downey
CAN anyone ever expect the road to the Olympic Games to run smooth?
Athletes could certainly be forgiven for imagining it might be a little more straightforward than cyclist Mark Downey’s quest to follow in his father’s footsteps.
The 23-year-old will have plenty of time to hear all about dad Seamus’ exploits at the 1984 Los Angeles Games when, in another world, he would have been busy preparing for the biggest summer of his life.
The family are all cooped up in their house outside Dromore, Co Down, obeying ‘stay at home’ protocols to see out the coronavirus pandemic.
“It’s another chapter to the story,” he says of the Olympics postponement until 2021.
“My mum thinks I could write a book about my Olympic qualifying journey so this is another part of it. Dad keeps saying it was different for him — he just got a call to say he was going and got himself to Dublin Airport and that was it.”
Downey, along with his Team Ireland partner Felix English, booked Ireland’s place at the Games at the start of the month before the ‘gradual realisation’ set in that the timeline to Tokyo was about to get a lot longer.
It had already been difficult enough.
Since the Madison was formally announced as an Olympic discipline for the 2020 (or rather 2021) Games, returning for the first time since 2008, it’s been a long and winding road.
Downey and English leapt out of the traps with World Cup gold and silver medals in 2017, reaching fifth in the rankings.
However, 2018 was to bring difficulties and disappointments, few less than the Commonwealth Games.
A crash led to Downey being denied a place in the points race final, despite his disagreement with the ruling that the ‘racing incident’ didn’t warrant a pass into the decider.
Since then, it’s been all about sealing a coveted spot at the Olympics.
A bronze medal in the points race at last year’s World Championship kickstarted his form and the bigger goal was to follow a year later.
At the 2020 Worlds, Downey and English required a big effort to pip Hong Kong to the final Olympic place.
“Our first year was a bit of a nightmare,” he explained.
“We changed coaches and got a new programme which was all a lot to adapt to.
“After that, I was nearly just moving on and looking to Paris in 2024 in terms of trying to go to the Olympics.
“Things just weren’t going well and I was even beginning to wonder if I was at the level that you need but then we just made so much progress.
“It was crazy. We qualified for the Worlds via our very last race to get our last chance to go to the Olympics and then we made it through in the final race again. We certainly left it late.
“Even the coaches didn’t know how we did it.”
For now, it’s all about making the most of close quarters with dad, mum Margaret and sisters Olivia and Pauline, with his other siblings Catherine and Sean out of the family home.
“We all get on well but we’ll see how long that lasts,” he smiled. “Olivia’s an HE teacher and she’s already been teaching me some tricks.
“We have been making some chilli con carne and she was showing me some ways to make it tasty.
“I’m always saying I should do a bit of work on my languages, too. I know a bit of French and Spanish but I really should make some effort.
“It’s a typical lazy attitude isn’t it? We just fall back on everybody else being so good at English. For training, I’ll be back to riding around the country roads near our house and it’ll be nice to do that and feel normal for three or four hours a day.”