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Chapter 1: What are Joe's reflections on his recent holiday in Spain?
This is an Irish independent podcast. Welcome, everybody. It's June the 1st. Happy Bank Holiday Monday. I'm still on holidays. This is pre-recorded. I'm not back. I'm not intending to come back for as long as possible, at least another week. And then who knows? That would be a hell of a move to come back from your holidays on a bank holiday. Yeah. No, this is pre-recorded.
Ronan, Will here, of course, you've heard them there. We're recording on the 20th of May.
21st of May is my birthday by the way I'm off tomorrow oh happy birthday it's a big 4-1 ah jeez can you believe it because last year's big 4-0 really went under the radar last time Joe took a midweek day off randomly and I just presumed it was the case again he was doing a gig in the convention centre with
And then he just dropped this out of the bag. He's like, Dan Carter, Roy Keane. I can't even remember. Who else was there?
Dan Carter, Roy Keane, Martin Johnson. Jim McGuinness. Jim McGuinness. John Kiley. John Kiley. Oh, dozens of names. Daryl O'Rourke, Annalise Murphy, Kelly Holmes. It just went on. You did like four dream interviews in one day.
Yeah.
When I saw your request to stay off, I just presumed, oh, he's doing that again. Who's he talking to this time? We'll hear about it on Friday.
God, somebody emailed in going, you never, you talked a lot about your 40th birthday and what you were going to do and, you know, life is for living. You never actually clarified what did you do? Or what was the, you know, did you book a trip to the Masters or did you have at least a gathering of loved ones? I did nothing. What did you do? I did nothing. Nothing.
My parents came over to the house. What day was it on? I can't remember. Whatever the weekend. I mean, we wait until the Saturday or the Friday. My mom and dad came over to the house and the two kids were there, my wife. That was it. It's nice. So look, we're recording on Wednesday. You've kindly printed out all the things I'm going to miss.
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Chapter 2: How did David Gillick transition from athlete to broadcaster?
Do you know what it is? It's probably, could I... Could I give myself maybe 10 to 15 minutes and come back and do it again? Would probably be a no. I'd probably be good for a one-off. But I would challenge anyone.
Okay. We'll do it for charity. You versus David Clifford or something. Oh, God. Because it's such a... It must be like an amazing thing to run at the speed that you used to run at. I'm sure you kind of miss that.
Yeah, you do. Yeah. You know what it is? It's that sort of like... freedom of it. You know, it's instinctive. You're not thinking. There's nothing really going through your head. It's just, you just float. And I do miss that sometimes. You know, even when I'm doing 5Ks, 10Ks, even the marathon, like it's a hard slog. Whereas in sprinting,
when the gun goes and you get up to your, like, your kind of race pace and you're just floating, say, down the back straight and you kind of hit the bend, all of that stuff is really cool. And before you know it, the race is almost over. And it's that sort of, that feeling of being really present, but yet it's almost gone through the motions. And that's probably all the training that you do.
Yeah. You don't even feel it.
You don't even feel it, yeah. But you kind of think, God, I've been gifted an amazing body here to do all this.
Yeah. Yeah. And even some of the races, I remember... I remember in the Europeans in 2010, the semi-final, probably one of the best races I've ever ran. And it just felt so easy. And I can remember crossing and looking at the clock and it was like 44.78, my second fastest time ever. And I remember just kind of going, oh my God, like if I actually had pushed it, what would I have ran, you know?
And that's just that brilliant feeling that all the work you've put in and then suddenly you just flick the switch and there it is.
Have times dramatically increased in the past, say, 12, 13 years since you've retired?
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Chapter 3: What challenges did David face after retiring from athletics?
Go away.
yeah yeah yeah so like then they went back and were referencing like you know some of the Greek athletes when it was in Athens you know this sort of you know and these were just things we were all talking about but you do you question and I think now as well when you move away from the sport you question an awful lot and you question okay well like you know you mentioned systematic doping you know Russia
And everything that went on there.
Well, that was comical. That was like a Shawshank Redemption tunnel to put fresh urine in with dirty urine. I mean, that was just taken to a comical level.
But even kind of looking at, OK, like testing, like who's testing their athletes, where are they getting tested? What countries are actually putting money in to test their athletes? And when you actually start going through the breakdown, you know, you'd be surprised at the nations that just aren't investing in that side of it.
And, you know, to jump around a bit, when you're in the long line with an RT microphone after races and you'll get the Irish athletes and you're kind of, you know, you're well down the line, so you're hoping someone might stop for you. Yeah. You're in that tricky spot whereby... you have to trade sometimes a short, friendly-ish interview for access.
And if you get a reputation for, see that guy there with the blue mic? He's going to start asking you about your missed test, by the way. I wouldn't stop for him. That puts you in a tricky spot as an interviewer So do I ask the hard question and then nobody stops for me, et cetera?
It is a really tricky one. And it's often something that's kind of crossed my mind with, say, you know, some of the athletes you come to that there might be questions or there might be a story. And the reality is that if I, like you said, if I'm to ask those questions, they won't talk to you. Simple as that.
And they'll tell their mates not to.
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Chapter 4: How has technology impacted athletics since David's career?
How can you reinvent yourself? And just keeps you hungry.
Yeah, I guess you've no choice. The interviews in RTE are incredibly well received. People love them. Yeah. Why do you think they're so...
Yeah, like sometimes when people say like, well done, I get a little bit like, I'm kind of, I'm just doing my job.
And sometimes, and this isn't meant in a disrespectful way, sometimes you'll just say, how do you feel after that? And they'll be like, oh my God, David. You know what I mean? Like, so, but it's like they're ready to go.
Yeah, I don't know. Like, I think I can just, from my own perspective, like when I was coming through the mix zone back in the day, and for people who might be listening and kind of like, maybe what's a mix zone? It's the mixed media zone. Okay. And it's the only exit point in a stadium. You have to walk through that. Win, lose or draw, you're walking through the mix zone.
And it can be a really... It's a strange place because you've just competed. One, you're knackered. Two, you're trying to kind of comprehend what has just happened, win, lose or draw. And then you've got somebody asking you questions. And I think when I was coming through at times, you don't even know who's going to talk to you. You don't know who's in the mix zone.
So you walk up and there's somebody. And I think the difference now is that... when they come through, there's a familiar face. There's someone from their sport, someone that maybe they know a little bit about, they know who has competed at a certain level and can empathise. And I think straight away, there's a bit of common ground, there's a bit of mutual respect and there's empathy.
And I think that's where I think people then kind of just feel relaxed and maybe we get a little bit more out of them in terms of an interview.
And I think that is the right approach for that situation.
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Chapter 5: What insights does David provide about coaching in athletics?
Now, World Athletics are going to counter this. So this is kind of like a live golf challenge. 100%. Yeah, okay. 100%. And World Athletics now from next year, they're going to have like a two-day kind of essential world championships. And they're going to take place in Budapest. And it's kind of... You know, they're putting it in Europe because that's where they get good crowds. Right.
And basically your world ranking will dictate whether you're invited or not. So by having a high world rank, say top 16, you'll get invited. If you're outside of that, you won't. So it's going to force you then to race over the course of the season. And again, big prize money over two days because we don't have a world championships every year. Yeah. You know, it's every second year.
So they're trying to kind of, okay, we need all our top athletes. Bridge the gap.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And one last one I just wanted to get you on was the scene here in terms of facilities and coaches. Is it terrible?
I think it's improved. I think... From terrible to... Yeah, look, it wasn't great. When I go back to when I was competing, like, you know, it was very hit and miss. Facilities, they weren't great. Coaching, you know, we had some really good volunteers. And unfortunately... a substantial amount are still volunteers.
So when you're going to a championships, you know, a start line, you know, you could be lined up against someone who has a full time team behind them. You know, whereas when I was there, I was standing on the line thinking, okay, well, like my coach is a volunteer. He's got a job in a bank.
You know what I mean? Yeah. So you're talking, so there's the... There's non-elite types who go to their local track club, ideally, and the coaches are all volunteers there. And I'd say that's the world over. But you're talking about then Gillick's good, he can compete in the under 15s. Your coach at that age is very much a volunteer. All volunteers. but they're volunteers all the way up. Okay.
Whereas the Dutch, for instance, they might have like a proper academy or cohort of coaches who look after the next superstar. That's the big difference.
Big difference. Right. So funding. So again, you can look at facilities. Yes, we would love more tracks. You know, every county should have a few tracks. How many, how are we liking that? Well, put it this way, in like Dun Laoghaire right down. Yeah. Okay. That's where I'm living. The track that we had was in UCD and that closed about, I don't know,
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