BALLINEEN Bullet Phil Healy landed home from the European Athletics Championships with a sensational silver medal, but it came at a cost – her trusty measuring tape was left behind at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome.
The hugely-popular Bandon Athletic Club sprinter won her first senior international medal as part of the trailblazing Irish women’s 4x400m relay team that finished second in the European final.
Thrilled to land back to West Cork with the superb silver medal, Healy has an important job to take care of before the Olympics – she needs to stock up on measuring tapes for the trip to Paris!
‘You try to maximise what you get out of the blocks, I have my settings measured to a tee and always use a standard pull-out measuring tape,’ Healy explained.
‘The measuring tape was taken off me after the 200m heat (at the Europeans). After I set up my block I didn’t get the measuring tape back so I need to get a new one for the training bag!
‘At these championships, sometimes you are allowed them and other times you’re not. Sometimes when they take them, they don’t come back to where your gear is and that’s what happened this time.’
Quipping that she needs ‘a box’ of measuring tapes for the exciting weeks ahead, Healy’s heroics on the European stage proved that West Cork’s fastest-ever woman still has the measure of her opponents.
