Greg Allen - A life in sport

30:25And there's another thing about the heptathlon. It's seven events. So when you finish an event, if you've had a really disappointing long jump and then you have to go into a javelin directly after it, you've got to get yourself centred to do it pretty quickly and not be too disappointed about your disappointing previous event within the space of a half an hour. because you're competing a half an hour to an hour later. So it requires great mental discipline and she has all of that. What about Rashida? She's kind of having a bit of an off year, not an out year, kind of a tough year, not a down year maybe, I don't know.

31:01But because she, because we were looking at her for the last two years going she's so exciting. The talent, the stride pattern, the length of stride. She looks like a person who oozes kind of easy talent. Do you know that kind of talent? You've got the feeling looking at her running that you're going, wait until this is honed further. And what will she do? What will she do is what can she do is the different question here. What she can do is obviously become an Olympic gold medal contender for Los Angeles 2028 because she has so many physical gifts. She has a very good competitive nerve and she has time on her side because she's about 24 at the moment, I think.

31:51So what also is happening there is that she has had a year last year, which didn't go well. They were trying something new to try and give her an ability to finish off races better than she had been finishing off races the last 40 meters. And what they did last year may not have worked. a lot of athletics is trial and error. And, you know, you have to try and keep pushing forward. You can't stand still because as you're coming through as a 23, 24-year-old athlete, there's a whole load of college kids coming through from the NCAA class of 2025 while Rashida wasn't having her best year. And now suddenly the event is more cluttered with even more contenders at her level.

32:33So she finished fourth in the Olympics. She finished second in the European Championships in 2024. in the interim more and more contenders have emerged as well as well as the contenders who were there for the Olympics and so she has to keep improving and to keep improving at the event she's in at the moment Is she going through an injury or anything? It's a set of circumstances which hasn't been specified as to what injury it actually is or was it an injury or was it an element of fatigue which can also happen to athletes so the information stream isn't exactly linear it's really exciting whatever's happening what is happening why is Irish athletics at this kind of interestingly you know why are we we're looking at it and we're going there's so much possibility there's new names coming through I think there's even a second female heptathlete Anna Macaulay I think yeah she broke the 6 ,000 points barrier there recently and it is it is a barrier it's a long way off 6 ,400 points which is kind of the territory of perhaps being in the medal position.

33:39But she's... Even 100 metre sprinters. Like we've got a guy who's going to come back from... He was born in Ireland, I think. Yeah. Benji Richardson, yeah. From South Africa. That's right, yeah. But he was born in Ireland and he wants to run for Ireland. Yeah. I believe he's always wanted to run from Ireland. And he was being talked about as a... You can take that out, yeah. He's being talked about as a, what do you call it, a real contender in 100 metres. I mean, Irish 100 metres runner. Give me a break. Yeah, he'll come into the Ireland 400 metre squad as well for the relay and we're getting ever more competitive that we could get a relay squad at both the Olympic in both the men's and women's in the 4x100 metres at the Olympics that would be something like it really would be extraordinary to see two Irish athletic squads in the 4x100 metres in a 16 nation field at an Olympic Games and certainly he's a sub 10 second runner so that means that he adds on to what is a very good renaissance going through at the moment we have Israel Letunde Bori Akinola and Sean Nick Bobo they're all in the territory of 10.2 or lower in the 100 metres and then you have this 9.9 athlete in Benji Richardson so you could have a relay team at the Olympics and definitely as well among the women we have the capacity for a relay team at the Olympics but of course all of these things have to pan out over two years and with the peptathletes and everything what's been happening is it just an increased is it is it is it money so have we put a bit more money into the facilities have we built to some more facilities.

35:06Have we attracted some better coaching? Have some better coaches been developed here? Is it all of the above? Or is it an increase in Irish confidence based on things they've seen and if I can see it, I can be it? I think really coaching is a big, big part of it and the fact that our coaching standards and our professionalisation of our coaching, although there's not many actually full-time professional coaches, has improved to the point now where we are operating at a much better level than we have been. And then you have the facility of the National Sports Campus. So the years of us not having, you know, facilities and always being able to lean on the excuse that, you know, we don't have facilities, they're not completely gone.

35:49We also have the Sports Institute. So we've got high level sports science. So we're now on a platform and the platform takes time for a new generation to come through to avail of the platform. And that's to some degree what's happening now. And we're getting a broad base of athletes coming through and creating competition for each other. And competition, like if he can do that or she can do that, I can do that. And then they all start saying, well, I used to beat her in schools. Why is she becoming a European medalist? I should be able to do that. And thereby, notional competition among each other also helps.

36:18I play a lot of tennis and there's an ATP Challenger 75 tournament coming to Ireland next week. It's in Elm Park. And Grigor Dimitrov is going to play in that tournament. Wow. And Grigor Dimitrov had Sinner at Two Sets to Love last year. in Wimbledon pulled out with an injury and always seen as Baby Federer they called him they used to call him Baby Fed because he looks his backhand is very similar to Fed and he was top three in the world at one stage he made the semi-finals in Wimbledon he's dropped outside the top 100 in the world because of the injury and now he's back in the challengers hoping to qualify for Wimbledon and he'll be in Elm Park next week my daughter's being ball girl oh wow fantastic she's ball girl at the tournament cannot wait they're going to play it on grass yeah they're playing it on grass so hopefully the weather stays good because that's Ireland you know yourself yeah I've played a lot of league tennis yeah I've seen in Ellen Park as well yeah lost a semi-final there very painfully in about 1982 I've played a lot of league there as well the best grass courts they are just no they're not the best ours are the best Kirkmines Kirkmines are the best we have pictures of Willander and Yannick Noah playing on them really yeah we have pictures in the club of Willander and Noah and Joachim Niestrom that was during the gold challenge years during the gold challenge years yeah 80s early 80s yeah I did a lot They used to come over to practice.

37:36They used to come over to practice before Wimbledon a couple of years and Philander enjoyed a couple of pints of Smithicks now in the bar. He liked Smithicks. He liked the ale. I'm still going to put a note for Ellen Park's grass courts. Okay. You're biased aside. What's your, two little quirky questions for you. I'll try and put you on the spot. What would be, you know, I'm a sports nut, right? But I'm kind of in the David Foster Wallace area of sport and the sort of Roger Federer as a religious experience kind of feeling. I love sport that makes my hair stand up on my arms. I love sport when it's when it's transcendent.

38:13Yeah. When you think of athletics and I have to give you like your death row sports watch death row athletics watch. What will you take with you? I'll give you one or two. In other words, to replay in your mind, what makes, what really do you, which sport athletics feat do you love watching or listening to or seeing again? Well, the one I want to change is Sonia Sullivan barreling down the home straight at the Olympics in 2000 and actually beating Gabrielle Djabo. I always, I remember commentating on it for radio and I was certain she was going to catch her. I'd like that one to be changed. So that would be, if I could manipulate the history, that's one that I think, because I thought Sonia ran an incredible race and she deserved to win.

39:00I just felt, yeah, that was emotional. And I do get emotional about stuff. And it's not something that is forced. It just happens. And I hope at times it might bring the best out in commentary. But sometimes, you know, you have to stop yourself from getting too emotional. Because I think you have to appreciate that while you're commentating with sort of green-eyed, green-tinted glasses, you know that you also have to remember that other athletes from other countries have put in just as much effort in whatever it is but what would I take in that context as a commentary if you can't think of one off the top of your head I'll chip in while you're going you chip in there I'll chip in there now so pretend we're in a pub now so I loved the Co-Ovette battles of the early of the late 70s and early 80s and I loved the way they were setting records apart from each other all over the world so we would hear this rumour that Coe had set a world mile record in Oslo and then two days later Ovet would beat his world record in Switzerland and Coe would come out and go I beat that world record but in some other place and they weren't racing against each other they were racing separately and this all culminated in kind of the Moscow Olympics then when they both went in the 8 and 1500 and Coe was the favourite for the 800 but amazingly Ovet completely blitzed him in the 800 but Coe came back in the 1500 and beat him in the 1500s.

40:29So the Coe-Ovette rivalry, I thought, was always very romantic, very beautiful, two contrasting personalities, two utter geniuses at their sport. Very hard to sort of surpass that kind of movie star lineup, you know, McQueen and almost, you know, Steve McQueen and Paul Newman against each other like in that sort of situation. And then with Coe himself, Coe, I always say it in my mind, 141.73, one of the greatest ever, ever world records in the history of man, in the history of humanity. When he broke the world 800 meters record to run 141.73, a record which stood for 20, 25, 30 years or something.

41:18But still, it's almost unheard of now for athletes in a meet to run 141.73. He did it in 1981. And no British athlete has broken 142 since. Yeah, it's utterly incredible. 45th anniversary this week. Unbelievable. Florence, I remember. Florence. Yeah. And he was just, he was so far ahead of his own. It reminded me of Shergar in the Epsom Derby. It was just, it was incredible. And this very slight man, this very, it was pure talent. It's pure talent emanating from him. Because nowadays you can see a lot of the athletes and you go, wow, look at the physique. you know even the O'Donovan isn't that his name the Irish guy the 800 metre guy who's our new 800 metre no our new guy that won the Cian McPhillips Cian McPhillips he looks like a unit an absolute unit he could play in the wing for Ireland yeah he looks like a unit by the way is he still a prospect oh yeah absolutely he had an issue in a dental issue earlier this year and he was flying in the indoor season he'll be back he's young enough and he's great what he did at the world championships last year was astonishing I think he was ranked 41st of 48.

42:24Yeah, but that lovely self-confidence he had. Yeah, completely. Didn't bother him. Won his heat, won his semi-final. Had been ranked 41st out of 48 going into it. And it didn't even bother him one bit. And when it came to the home straight, he just came from a bit too far back. The three athletes who finished in the gold, silver and bronze medals at the World Championships last year, the 800 metres, are three of the five fastest or they were at the time and I think they still are of all time. And they were the three medalists at the Olympics. Yes. So the only people who beat him were the three greatest athletes at the moment.

42:54It wasn't like somebody who was a relatively, you know, middle ground athlete had picked up one of the medals. It was the three greatest athletes in the 800 metres of this era. So fingers crossed you'd be back. Yeah. Have you thought of any? I think, you know, I do think Potter Carrington winning the Open in 2007 is a moment that I will never, ever forget. I mean, obviously I'll never forget it, but it was because we hadn't won a major in 60 years. and Podrick wins in the most dramatic fashion possible. This is obviously a different sport to athletics. In athletics, I think Kiera McGeehan's victory in the European Championships in 2024 will be, is probably my favorite race of all time.

43:40Really? Because she had so many knockbacks and setbacks in her career and she's going through the biggest setback of all right now. Cancer, yeah. She's battling cancer. And her book is out at the moment. It'll be, I think, launched next week. I've had a good read of the first half so far. It is an extraordinary book. She is all human life and always has been all human life. She's the most expressive and intelligent interviewee and just person in general. A beautiful home sort of bird type of personality and has an extremely, how do I put it, a nerve under pressure, which is beyond what you can see in her face sometimes before a race, because she can look very nervous before a race.

44:33And then she gets into it. And then that particular European Championship gold medal, she had to burst through two athletes who were forming a barrier in front of her with about 80 meters to go. And she did. She found a way through. and she said something afterwards of the notion that, you know, I didn't play camogie for no reason. Yeah, great. Yeah, and she got through and when she won that gold medal, it righted for me a lot of wrongs because she had so many setbacks, races that she could have won, races that she, you know, disappointed herself in. But just that's the same for every athlete but for her because she's such an emotional interviewee after races.

45:08All the interviews that I would have done in the years which were quite sad for her, that interview afterwards was one of those wonderful moments David Gillick did it when she had something to celebrate and a gold medal at that yeah amazing okay I'll finish with athletics now because I want to talk to you about golf a little bit but the athletics when I'll finish with you it's another commentary that I was reminded of years ago I had years ago I had Eamon Coughlin on the podcast and Eamon Coughlin went through the trials and tribulations of coming fourth in the Olympic twice you know 76 Montreal and you know John Walker beating him into fourth and then 1980 in Moscow and the so-called Yifter the Shifter and I remember McGee going Yifter the Shifter and Eamon ran into fourth again but then in the 1983 World Championships in Helsinki he came good and he beat everybody and one of the great commentaries of that was the Irish RTE commentator Tony O'Donoghue Tony O'Donoghue yeah and it's so I have some of the words he wrote right because Eamon One of them, I think, was the fact that it's hard to remain objective at this point.

46:19And he said, Eamon comes around. Dmitriev is in the... Dmitri Dmitriev. Dmitriev Dmitriev. Great Russian name, you know, like something in an Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Cold War movie. Dmitri Dmitriev. And he's coming around and Coughlin has him in his sights. And Coughlin joins him on the corner and Coughlin knows he's going to win. He can feel it. And he shakes his fist and he looks across at Dmitriev as if to say, I've got you and I'm going to do what I wanted. but Tony O'Donoghue the RTE commentator lost it beautifully completely and he went Eamon Coughlin now coming around the corner Dimitriov is on his shoulder and it is becoming increasingly difficult to remain cool and objective about the outcome of this race and then Coughlin took off from Dimitriov and Eamon Coughlin he is supremely confident and with total contempt runs away from the field isn't that wonderful with total contempt I remember him saying that He says with total contempt, runs away from the field.

47:16Eamon clearly had a career of near misses and the two Olympic near misses, which he still speaks about, you know, wondering what if, especially in 76, did he go too early? He found himself at the front too early in the final lap. And if he just hung back because he had that wonderful kick in the home straight, if he had hung back, would he have? And of course, you know, sport is full of woody haves, what's ifs and buts. So I think in 83, all of that emotion poured into that victory in the 5000 metres in Helsinki. And it was the inaugural world championships. So he was the first world champion in the 5000 metres.

47:57And it was a, you know, it was a fantastic year for him. He had broken the world indoor record in the mile in Meadowlands just about six months earlier. So there he was, past his 30th birthday, but not past it. And he was achieving his lifetime goal. It all poured into that. And people criticized him for the celebration as he passed Dimitriyev. But that was Eamon's personality. And to some degree, I liked it because there was an expression of, finally, it's going to happen for me. You know, I don't think it was a moment when he looked at Dimitriyev. It wasn't arrogance. It was just, it's going to happen for me.

48:35It was relief. It was relief live. Yeah. Live relief. But you do raise an interesting question because this is something we're going to have. This is something that comes up a lot in Ireland. Eamon Coughlin was one of our greatest sporing heroes to look at. Very marketable as well. Yeah. And very articulate. Yes. And confident. Aha. But there's the rub. In 1970s Ireland. When it was rare. When we were a backwater. Yeah. This is the problem. Who do you think you are, boy? Yeah. Who do you think you are, boy? Eamon Coughlin. You cocky bollocks, you. You see, this was the problem because in Ireland, you raise your head above the parapet and you deign to think that you could take on the world.

49:15He wasn't liked. He was not liked. And it's a shame. It's a shame because I think we've matured a lot as a nation now. Somebody like Eamon Coughlin would be appreciated a lot more. But there was this innate Irish begrudgery of the man because he went to America and he almost kind of got Americanism. Do you remember he was kind of almost a bit American? Yeah, he picked up a bit. You have to remember as well that Eamon is a legend in American athletic circles. You go into the New York Athletic Club. The dream, the Wanamaker Miles. Yeah, or the New York Athletic Club overlooking Central Park. You go, it's a, you know, a very venerable organisation.

49:52There's Eamon Conklin's name is all over the walls there because he won the Wanamaker Miles seven times. But he was one of those people who's revered abroad more than he would have been here. It's certainly in America. Certainly in America. But that was probably because he was before his time. I mean, it took that level of confidence to be the athlete that he was alongside the talent that he had. And he developed, he would have been obviously as confident as he was in himself. His autobiography is an interesting, very interesting reading this. But I think he realized that that personality trait was accepted much more in America.

50:23And perhaps to some degree he felt, well, if you're going to beat them, you've got to feel like them. And a bit of arrogance isn't a bad thing either. but Eamon way way way before his time Absolutely When you think it is 50 years since Montreal Absolutely I've always been a huge fan of his and I always thought he was a little bit unfortunately ahead of his time in Irish terms Yeah I still think that he helped to break ground for others to follow Yeah Because there had to be someone who had that level of self-confidence for others to follow after Yeah And look what followed after him Marcus O'Sullivan Frank O'Mara Ray Flynn like if you look at the top Irish 1500 metre times of all time or mile times of all time I think four of them are still from the 1980s from that quartet didn't they have the 4x1500 metre world record the 4x1 mile world record it's funny I only met John O'Shea today and you know that was in 1985 so we had the 40th anniversary last year I was at that event and a bit like Munster beating the All Blacks I think you know about 50 ,000 people when actually only 5 ,000 were there.

51:32Yeah, that four by one mile world record was that quartet of Ray Flynn, Frank Amara, Marcus O'Sullivan and Eamon Coughlin, who wasn't even 100 % fit. And it was a very interesting part of that relay because there was an Ireland B team and an Ireland C team. We had incredible depth in the mile back in the 1980s that we could actually field an A and a B and a C team. All of them in the territory of being sub four minute milers or roughly around four minute milers are an awful lot better. and Eamon had to run a leg directly against John Tracy who wasn't a miler but was so competitive and Eamon had been going back from injury and he said the one thing I'm going to do I'm not going to be beaten by John Tracy in this leg and that probably drove him on to around a four minute mile when he wasn't really all that fit but that was an indication of the era and the strength of that era and I really think that Eamon set the template for others to follow Yeah absolutely You spoke a little bit about Harrington and isn't he a fascinating character?

52:28I mean, I think that we did a poll on Today FM, actually on The Breakfast Show. We did a poll because we would have had a lot of response now. So you get a kind of a feel, you know, just among non-particularly sports listeners, some sporties. And the poll was Ireland's greatest ever sportsman. Harrington cleaned up. Really? Yeah. And I remember analysing that with Ian and the guys and going, Harrington cleaned up, right. And it's something about him. there's something about him that's liked there's something he has that people like one of the things I think is I mean I'm sure you've thought about this yourself but he is in a way the the greatest interviewee of all time because he gives so much like even in print I remember seeing this right in print do you remember those little questionnaires you see in Sunday Times like fame and fortune what do you do with your money he filled that out did he right so it's like What do you do at the moment?

53:26Are you a spender or a saver? And you can hear his voice in the print. You know, both. I like to spend and save. Obviously, you know, I wouldn't buy pay-per-view movies when I'm on tour because it's just$8.99 a movie. You've probably seen it already. Too much information, right? Or then, he said, are you saving for anything at the moment? And I swear this wasn't, because I could see the lack of humour in it. This wasn't ironic. I'm saving for a private jet at the moment. Unfortunately, it's$24 million and I've only got 18 million saved. So I'm actually, I think about 18 % short. I don't see myself making up that margin in the next two years.

54:05Completely irony free. He answered the question as he was given it. And that is the chartered accountant in him. Yeah. He didn't turn pro until he was 24 because he wanted to get his full qualification just in case he had a fallback if things didn't go well. And you know, there was every chance said it might not have gone well. When Pauldry turned pro, he had a bit of a non-pro-like game. He didn't strike the ball all that well, but he did have the most amazing short game in or around 40 yards of the green. And I always remember him saying that when he turned pro, he didn't think his short game was as good as it was when he was an amateur because he wasn't nearly as good a ball striker when he was an amateur.

54:47So he'd missed so many greens. But he had the mindset that there wasn't any situation around the green that he didn't think he could get up and down from, you know, a chip and a putt from, because he had so much practice, because he missed so many greens as an amateur. So when he turned professional, and he was a brilliant amateur, played in three Walker Cups, played alongside Jodie Fannigan to beat Tiger Woods in a match in the Walker Cup, which is the equivalent of the Ryder Cup, except for amateur golfers, and that was in 1995. But when he turned pro, he actually won the Spanish Open within a matter of months, a few months after he turned pro, and then got to about 97, 98 and realised that his ball striking game wasn't good enough to get to the top level because he only saw a route to the top level.

55:32So he broke it all down, went to Bob Torrance, legendary coach, the father of Sam Torrance and broke it all down and started to build the power game to the point now where he's 54 years of age. He finished 18th in the USPGA Championship, a major golf championship where all the big boys are out there, won by Aaron Rye. and to be top 20 at 54 years of age in a major championship where everybody is trying their hardest I think secretly gave him a really really big surge of joy that he's still long enough good enough to be a competitor and you know he is a complete legend in his interviews and that's quite apart from when he takes his clubs onto the golf course and he's always talked about his mind and if he can quieten his mind or get his mind focused highly intelligent ah yeah and there's an awful lot going on between the years I always remember after a round in the Irish Open it was 2003 and he came out with this line I think he shot 69 in the first round and 75 in the second round and we were asking him what happened out there today and he said I think I need to focus a little bit more on my and the pause he's looking for the word yeah I think I need to focus a bit more on my focus That's right.

56:50I remember focusing on the focus. I was taking the piss out of him on the radio. Ian thought I was making it up. No, he said, I have it on tape. I just said, I copied Harrington. He said, that's Harrington said that. I need to focus on the focus. I'm focusing on the focus. Yeah, but that's because there's so much going on in his head. And he looks at everything from every angle and then comes up with his perspective on how to do it. And he's always very certain about what he's doing or he seems to be very certain about what he's doing, whether it's right or wrong. He commits to it because that is what golf is all about.

57:26It's committing to just one plan. And his YouTube stuff is really entertaining as well. Yeah, and that really started around COVID and, you know, where he was just doing a few videos to kind of, I suppose, he was locked down as much as anybody in the house and he has this wonderful practice area and he started doing a few of those videos. And then it became, you know, Paddy Golf, which is some of the best videos you can find anywhere on the internet. And the internet is all, is, you know, adorned with all of these videos, how to improve your game. His are the best. You look forward to interviewing him on tour.

57:58And can you get more out of him than Brad Bublik can get? Podrick is very equal in how he gives what's going on in his head. And there's often, as I said, five different things going on in his head at the same time. So he can start on one thing at the start of an answer. Stop. Start another thing. So if you're trying to edit it for just one thought. You could get lost. I always remember it was Benson and Hedges in the Belfry and he shot a 67 and it's a good round of golf around the Belfry and he's doing the interview afterwards and I'm chatting to him and I put the fairly obvious question, good round of golf, you must be happy with that.

58:43One of my searingly difficult questions. And he starts saying no, no, no. Played badly, D to Green. And then halfway through the answer he stops and he says I've got to stop doing this my dad told me that in my interviews I say things about good rounds of golf which are negative so then he starts saying no I played okay but he actually so the thought process that's going through his mind which normally people would keep to themselves he articulates in his answer and his father he thinks out loud yeah he thinks out loud his father was a great man and taken far too far too soon Paddy Paddy and you know so Paddy would would have given Portig a lot of the wisdom as indeed being the youngest of five five brothers would have given him wisdom

59:37and my thanks to Greg Allen for coming in and regaling me with all those stories I really really loved talking to Greg about sport and I hope he enjoyed it too and we talked for so long and we split the conversation into two different tranches that we can bring you the second half of that conversation next week. My thanks, of course, to Hum Finance for getting involved with the Mario Rosenstock podcast and partnering with us. Hum has been around for 30 years. Get whatever you like, barbecues for the summer and pay them back in bite size. Easy payments. That's Hum Finance. Thank you, Hum. And thank you, of course, to you, the most important element of this show, the listener.

1:00:13See you same time, same place for part two of Greg Allen next week. Loads of great stories. The Mario Rosenstock podcast. Thanks to Hum. Finance made easy when you shop tech, electrical, appliances, kitchens and much more. Flexify Europe Limited. Trading as home is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland.