The Irish Times/Sport Ireland Sportswoman Award for December: Ellen Walshe (Swimming)
A measure of how productive a trip it was for Ellen Walshe to Budapest for December’s World Short Course Swimming Championships is that the 24-year-old Dubliner has lost count of how many times she broke Irish records across four events.
Was it eight?
“I ... think so,” she hesitates. “It was twice in four events. I think. Hmm, I don’t know.”
All a blur?
“A bit, yeah,” she laughs. “But when I get out of the water, it’s on to the next one. I’m not thinking about what I achieved, I have a new goal, another race. Your head switches so quickly. Once you achieve a goal, you move on.”
Most athletes might want a breather come the tail end of a gruelling year, but after making her second Olympic appearance in Paris, Walshe was ready for more.
“I enjoyed every minute of it, I competed at the best level ever, I just thought ‘I’m not done with the sport yet’.
“But I took a break after Paris, I didn’t swim for four weeks which was probably the longest I’ve spent out of the pool in maybe 12, 13 years. And after a break like that it can take a while to feel comfortable when you’re back in the water. It’s the breathing especially, you can struggle to get back in to the rhythm of it.”
“And it is hard to switch off. Swimming or exercising is kind of my therapy in life, that’s my thing. So during my break I’d still go for runs, just to keep things ticking over. I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been, the pinnacle, so you don’t want to lose that.”
Apart from anything, she left Paris with her love of her sport heightened, buoyed by having reached her first Olympic final, in the 400m Individual Medley.
“And becoming an Olympic finalist makes you feel you fit in, you belong at that level. I didn’t feel that in Tokyo, I knew I wasn’t quite there yet. I remember being in the call room and everything just felt so unusual. I didn’t know the girls, I wasn’t in the clique.
“But it felt different in Paris. I know them now, know them personally, so you can go in and have a laugh. And instead of looking around you and worrying about what everyone else is going to do, you’re thinking, ‘what do I need to do?’ So yeah, reaching that Olympic final made me feel like I belonged there. I am in the mix. It’s taken a while to get there, but I think I can finally say I am internationally competitive at this level.”
The chief reason she threw herself back in to it after that break was what was coming up in December.
“I absolutely adore swimming short course, and I’d won a medal in the world championships before, so I just wanted to get back on the stage and compete again.”
“Long course, like at the Olympics, is a bit more mind-boggling for me. It’s much easier to wrap my head around swimming 25 metres instead of going all the way down to that 50 mark. And I love the 200 distances, not so much the 400 – so I just pretend to myself that the 400 is the two hundred.”
It did the trick in Budapest, Walshe reaching the final and finishing fifth in both the 200IM and 400IM, as well as making the final of the 100m Butterfly. What was she up against? That all three races were won in new world record times tells the story.
“Happy enough,” was her verdict on her performances, not to mention breaking Irish records on eight occasions, but with 11 races over five days she ran out of steam in her efforts to add another world championship medal to her tally.
Setting all those personal bests, though, sends her in to 2025, July’s World Long Course Championships in Singapore the main event in the calendar, knowing that she’s progressing. Her reward to herself after that year’s work?
“A couple of days off” over Christmas – and skipping “Rudolph’s Revenge”.
What?
“My coach Brian Sweeney has done it for years in Templeogue. It’s basically a massive training block at Christmas, you do as many metres as you can for a 10 or 15 day period. And a 12k session for about three hours. It’s not fun, but after you complete it, it’s pretty cool to look back.”
So, it’s Rudolph making you pay for having a nice Christmas?
“Pretty much, yeah. But I got out of it this time, I said I’d take a little bit of time off. But back in to all of it now, blowing the cobwebs off for the long course season.”
Swimming, not least because of those unmercifully early morning training sessions, never mind Rudolph’s Revenge, always seems like one of the more punishing sporting pursuits. So much so, you’d be tempted to say, ‘don’t put your daughter in the pool, Mrs Worthington’. But even after devoting over a decade of her life to it, Walshe has never loved it more.
“I know a lot of people have a big reflection after the Olympics, wondering what they want to do next with their lives, whether they want to carry on with their sport. But I reflect very quickly, and then move on fast. I don’t even remember the Olympics, I really don’t. It’s always, ‘what’s next?’”
“I definitely have things I can work on, so I’m not finished yet. I feel like I have more to give. And I’m loving every moment of it. It’s brought me so many different places in the world, given me so many different opportunities in life. I’m still happy. I still love it.”
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