Armitage shows it’s possible to change sports and still succeed

By Kevin Egan

To have six Offaly athletes selected to represent Ireland in the Olympic Games was an incredible feat, albeit Darragh Kenny didn't get the chance to compete. By now most readers of this column will have seen the graphic on one of their WhatsApp groups, where Offaly had the highest number of Olympians per capita out of any county.

Now even allowing for the contrived nature of stats like that – this columnist’s favourite is the one about Vatican City having two popes per square mile – it was still an incredible feat for a county with a sub 100,000 population to have six athletes at the Olympics, and even more so when we consider the diverse range of sports that were featured.

Shane Lowry had the highest profile and Gráinne Walsh was arguably the most likely medal chance of them all, but perhaps the most interesting story of the sextet was that of Megan Armitage, who made the switch from spending most of her career focused on running and hockey to taking up cycling during lockdown.

The Shinrone native finished 35th in the women's road race after having been badly hampered by an accident involving other riders. That forced her to lose touch with the leading group, but she still will go into the record books as the just the second Irish rider to enter the women’s road race, and the first to complete it.

Coming to an elite sport relatively late in life and thriving goes against everything that has come to be known as the ‘expected wisdom’ in the world of athletic endeavour. Participating in multiple sports at a young age is the usual way for young Irish girls and boys and it is recognized as the optimal sporting approach, but there still comes a time in every sport – usually in the mid to late teens – where coaches will try to get the exclusive attention of their most promising young athletes.

But the Armitage case proves that as long as there is ongoing physical and athletic development, it’s usually possible to change sporting focus and still succeed. Particularly in sports where the importance of physical or mental traits greatly outweighs the “skill” element, it’s amazing what can be done with late arrivals, as long as they come in somewhere close to ready to play elite sport.

Taking up gymnastics or the pole vault when you’re closer to your 30th birthday than your 20th probably wouldn’t work, but for those out there who have perhaps plateaued or lost interest in one sport, Armitage’s example will stand out like a beacon of hope.