Former Irish sprinter JOAN HEALY has seen her younger sister Phil emerge from the most challenging stage of her career to become a two-time Olympian
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NOBODY needs to tell Phil or myself about the ups and downs of sport. It owes you nothing. It’s almost exactly 12 months since we made the trip home from the 2023 national senior championships held in Santry and the silence said it all. One of those days you want to forget, but can’t.
I came fourth in the 100m final, struggling with a foot injury. Phil finished fourth in the women’s 400m final, three seconds outside her personal best, after a performance she described as chronic. No medals between us, I don’t think that had ever happened before. Neither of us were in good form, on or off the track. We both cut our seasons short after those nationals.
Back then Phil was staying with Fintan and myself at our home in Ovens. It was the first time in years that we were back living together and while it was fun for the most part, now and again there was some friction because we were both trying to figure out what was next for us. We’re both quite stubborn so that doesn’t help! At the time we were both at different stages, too. I knew I was coming to the end of my athletics career (and have since hung up my spikes) whereas Phil was trying to find a way out of the slump she was in, and that had dragged on for 18 months, ever since she came home from the 2022 World Indoors.
Phil’s not an open book either. I could see how hard she was finding it, but she keeps things to herself; she’s a very deep person. I know what those hard days feel like, I’ve been in dark places myself because of athletics, so I understood her frustration. It was hard to watch Phil going through that challenging period, and there were times she seriously contemplated packing it all in. She was trying to weigh it all up, what life would be like if she stopped or what it would look like if she stuck at it. That uncertainty is hard. I’ve always said there’s a determination and steel to Phil, and she doesn’t like to admit defeat in anything. This was another battle.
Phil found that spell difficult. We all would. When you have been at the top in the 200 and 400 for so long, and then to visibly struggle, that’s difficult to process. We could see it in her performances, they weren’t coming together, they weren’t clicking. She was training but her body wasn’t responding. There were certain sessions she couldn’t do, specifically with speed. A red flag was that Phil had no kick, that visible gear that she has. She ran a lot of 400s in 2022 and it was very evident that she wasn’t hitting the first 200 in the speed that she would normally hit. With a 400 you never really know until about the 300-metre mark, and while she would still be in the race, it was backwards she was going – we saw that in her 400m heat at the European Athletics Championships in Munich. That was difficult to watch. She has this great ability to pull out a performance at the major championships but there was nothing there that day.
It took a while to find out what exactly it was, before eventually being diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease; it’s an irregular thyroid. That was the start of the comeback that we’re seeing now, Phil back on the world stage. Once her thyroid levels started to level out, she was back in control again, her winter training went well and in the indoor season earlier this year we started to see glimpses of the old Phil.
With all this going on, Phil was also my maid of honour for my wedding with Fintan last October, and she was still living with us at the time; that was a great distraction for her, to have something to take her mind off athletics. I feel having distractions and a life outside of athletics has also helped Phil get back to the level that she’s at now. She was very consumed by athletics, and that’s not a bad thing, but she’s now enjoying her life outside of athletics too.
SISTER ACT: Joan Healy on her wedding day in October 2023 with her maid of honour, her younger sister Phil.
Phil has put a little bit more focus on ‘normal life’. She knows that when athletics does end, she needs a life to go back to, and has been putting plans in place for that next chapter in her life. Since Tokyo she’s started a full-time job that is a great distraction from athletics. She’s been based in Waterford for years, but she’s back in Cork a lot more now – and that’s important. Home will always be home. It’s like a jigsaw and all the pieces added together sees Phil back in her second Olympics – and we’re all so proud of her knowing what she’s gone through to get here.
To go to one Olympics is unbelievable. To go to two is even better. She’s probably a little bit disappointed not to go in an individual event – she finished just outside the quota for the women’s 200m – but maybe that’s a silver lining? In Tokyo she qualified for an Olympic final with the mixed 4x400m relay team and ran in both the 200 and 400 afterwards – the first Irish woman to ever run in three field events in the one Olympics – but I felt she sacrificed her own individual events for the relay.
She will always be an Olympic finalist and that will be the target again in Paris. We have to wait and see what the teams look for the mixed 4x4 and the women’s 4x4, but she will be a major player with the latter, like she was when they won a silver medal at the recent European Athletics Championships in Rome.
Depending on how Rhasidat Adeleke, Sharlene Mawdsley and Sophie Becker progress in the women’s 400, there’s a good chance of a lot of the team will have several rounds in their legs by the time the women’s 4x4 relay starts, but Phil will be fresh and will have a huge role to play in helping qualify for the final. Given the women’s 400m final is the same day as the relay heats, the odds are the girls will be back in a position where they need to qualify for a final without Rashidat; they did it at the Europeans, but we’re on the Olympic stage here. Add in the USA, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, this is the best of the best. We have the experience and the athletes, and I’m hoping they do get to the final. That will be some turnaround for Phil; from a fourth place finish at the 2023 nationals to, hopefully, an Olympic final. Fintan and myself have our honeymoon next month, but if Phil gets to a final, we might have to look at hopping on a last-minute flight to Paris!
