Finn takes to the blocks in Tokyo

By Shane Brophy

The 2020 Olympic Games finally get underway this Friday after a postponement of one year due to Covid-19, however the delay has worked out in the favour of Finn McGeever.

The Ballina swimmer will line up on the starting blocks next Tuesday, 27th July at either 12.17pm or 12.27pm Irish time, in the heats of the 4x200m Freestyle Relay at the Tokyo Aquatic Centre, fulfilling a dream that few actually realise of being an Olympian.

If the Olympic Games had gone ahead as originally scheduled last year, it is unlikely Finn or the Ireland team would have qualified but the last twelve months has seen all Irish swimmers make giant strides, with a nine strong swim team taking to the starting blocks in Japan.

“I have improved so much over the past year,” Finn revealed.

“The Covid break helped so much. I got in some really big blocks of training.

“With college online, I was working on my own schedule completely, so I was a borderline professional athlete other than having the stress of exams,” said the UL student.

“I could go back to bed after morning training, and we had the pools mainly to ourselves as well.”

Studying on-campus in UL where the Irish High Performance Centre is located certainly helped Finn in his development, where he and his coach John Szaranek, who also lives in Ballina.

passion for swimming

For anyone who gets to the highest level of their chosen sport, it has to be in their blood from a young age and living overlooking Lough Derg made it hard for Finn to avoid developing a love of swimming.

“We have always been a water orientated family,” Finn referred to his brothers Donnacha and Ruairi, and parents Charlie and

“We live by Lough Derg, so we have always been jumping off of piers and lakes during the summer. We are big into jumping off things into water.

“My dad took me to the local Lakeside Leisure Centre when I was younger, almost every night and from that I got good at swimming. My brothers then started training in Nenagh and then they moved to Limerick swimming club and I joined them there at about nine-years-old.”

From acorns grow oak trees and for any young athlete, they have to start somewhere and like former Olympians such as Sonia O’Sullivan, competing in Community Games for Ballina-Boher is where Finn began competing for the first time, and he liked the taste for it.

“It started with competitions like the Community Games and once I started doing them and started winning medals, I said to myself this is the sport for me,” he said.

“So I began having a laser focus on swimming, stopped playing soccer, and from there on I knew it was the sport for me and I just kept going.

“The inspirations for me weren’t the big guys like Michael Phelps (winner of 23 Olympic Gold medals), obviously he is an inspiration, but mainly it was the older swimmers I trained with in high performance centre in Limerick, day in and day out, they were the ones I chased and were the ones the pushed me all the way up. I can’t thank them enough for motivating me every day.”

OLYMPIC EXPERIENCE

While this will still technically be an Olympic Games, in many aspects it won’t as due to Covid restrictions, there will be no spectators at any of the events in Tokyo, which means family and friends will have to watch on from home.

However, in terms of Finn’s focus on his event itself, swimming in an empty arena, it won’t come as a shock to him as it is what he has been used to over the past twelve months.

“I have never swam in an arena with thousands of fans before so even if they only have a few in, it will be more than I have evet seen,” he said.

“I am kind of lucky that I haven’t been to many senior competitions so this Olympics is going to be really fun for me, because I am going to be amazed by the whole thing regardless of how it works out.”

Finn, along with his Ireland teammates have been preparing in a holding camp for the last ten days and only this week arrived into the Olympic village in Tokyo to prepare for competition with swimming taking place in the first week.

It won’t be the usual Olympic experience where Finn can move around the village freely, and take in some of the sights and sounds of Tokyo, due to the severe outbreak of Covid there at the moment, but he will make the best of it, and use it as a learning experience for the future when he is physically and mentally more mature as an international swimmer.

“I am young (20) so I will be taking in the experience,” he said.

“I am still going to swim my absolute best, but it will also be about getting used to this level of performance and seeing what I have to offer.”

Finn’s joy at being selected was tempered by the disappointment of Jordan Sloan and Gerry Quinn, who despite being on the team that booked Ireland’s place at the Games, didn’t make the final cut due to FINA competition rules.

The invitation to compete in the Men’s 4x100m Medley Relay was rescinded by FINA, resulting in Ireland’s ‘relay only’ athlete availability reducing from four athletes to two, and as part of this process with Finn and Jack McMillan chosen as the lucky two. Joining them on the relay team will be Brendan Hyland, Ireland’s only athlete to receive a FINA ‘B’ invitation. Hyland’s invite was ultimately crucial to Ireland being able to field a Men’s 4x200m Freestyle Relay at Tokyo.

Although it is not Swim Ireland’s philosophy to accept such invites, without this invite, the Men’s Freestyle Relay would not have travelled to Tokyo with the relay team requiring at least two athletes qualified in individual events featuring within it.

The programming of the Men’s 200m Breaststroke and Men’s 800m Freestyle events immediately before and after this relay made this selection a particular challenge. The fourth member of this relay team will be Shane Ryan, as under Olympic rules this athlete can only be selected from the three male swimmers on the team who have a FINA ‘A’ time.

The whole issue isn’t ideal for Ireland’s chances of doing well in competition, but Finn is aiming to make the best of it.

“We have two lads stepping up and joining the team and they are great to do that but because of that we don’t have the four fastest freestylers in Ireland.

“We are still going to go for it, but we are not going to expect anything brilliant from it, but for myself I want to try and swim a personal best time.”