February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
“I don’t know how I’m going to do, but I just plan to work as hard as I can until the competition and see how it goes,” Ibrahim said. “It’s a very big competition, so I can’t make any predictions. If some guys who are entering are working harder than me, that will show in the competition.”
I don’t know whether Ibrahim has a legitimate claim for asylum or not. He says that his work as a bodyguard in Nigeria was taking a more violent tinge and he left rather than become a fully fledged henchman for politicians. Sounds like a plausible enough story, but that’s not really the point. The issue here is that 100 or so years ago, when Ireland wasn’t the prosperous nation it is today, several of the finest athletes of the time were forced to emigrate in search of a better life. Which is exactly what Ibrahim has done. The only difference is the Irish athletes way back then were welcomed with open arms by the likes of Britain, the U.S., South Africa and Canada.
This is why when you trawl down through the Olympic records for the first half a dozen games, you find Irishmen (and back then it was all men) winning gold, silver and bronze in the singlets of other nations. What better illustration of the trend than the 1908 hammer contest, where all three medals went to Irishmen competing for different countries? John J. Flanagan from Kilbreedy, Co. Limerick, and Matt McGrath from Nenagh, Co. Tipperary, took gold and silver for the U.S., and Cork’s Con Walsh collected bronze for Canada.
The historical context is important because last weekend Alistair Cragg set foot in the Republic of Ireland for the first time in his life. At 23, he was in Dublin to run in the 1,500 and 5,000 meters at the national athletics championships as part of his preparation for representing a country he’s never previously visited in Athens. One of the most highly touted runners to emerge from the American collegiate scene in decades, Cragg was born and raised in Johannesburg. He went on a scholarship to the University of Arkansas, where he was coached by the legendary Mayo-born John McDonnell.
“I would say without a doubt, Alistair Cragg has been the most consistent distance runner I’ve ever had,” said McDonnell, who counts Frank O’Mara and Niall Bruton among his former charges. “In big meets he seemed to want to do it. I’ve never seen him run a bad race. I think that’s a great asset to him down the road. If he makes the Olympic final, it would be tremendous experience. His best years are three or four years down the road when he gets a little more international experience. But he’ll be able to compete with most of them right now.”
It was McDonnell who pointed out to Cragg that since his mother’s parents were Irish, he was qualified to run for Ireland.
“I remember my sophomore year when I was sitting in coach’s office and, being a South African citizen, I never saw myself making the Olympic team,” Cragg said of his decision to switch allegiances three years ago. “I kind of panicked and the only reason I panicked was I never thought I would run in the Olympics.”
Cragg had held an Irish passport since the age of 5 but the closest he’d come to visiting the place was a trip to Belfast to run for South Africa in a junior event five years ago. His success at Arkansas the last three years is one of the reasons he hasn’t managed to get to Dublin for the first time until three weeks before the Olympics.
“I feel like I’m pretty much Irish right now,” Cragg said in an interview with an Arkansas paper last week. “It’s obviously nerve-wracking when you don’t speak the same dialect of English, but I feel pretty comfortable.”
Cragg is entitled to his trip to the Olympics. He’s a grandchild of the diaspora and a small country that was forced to export so many people is entitled to catch a little payback. However, there’s a simple question worth asking: Who’s got a better sense of life in Ireland then?
Cragg, somebody who’s never been there, who openly admits his decision to switch allegiance three years ago was motivated purely by ambition and will base himself in Fayetteville, Ark., from now on. Or Ibrahim, who’s up in Drogheda training with friends from the Irish Amateur Boxing Association and, from what we can see, desperately trying to make a case for himself and his family to be allowed a chance at a better life in Ireland.
Wherever you stand on the issue of refuges/asylum seekers, the influx of so many different nationalities to Ireland over the last 10 years may yet represent an unlikely boon for certain sports. Apart from cases like Leo Ibrahim, it won’t be long before the first Romanian kids — who were either born in Ireland or came here as toddlers — reach their mid-teens and here’s what we selfishly dream about happening.
Imagine a kid with the natural technique that seems the hallmark of every Romanian footballer allied to the spirit and appetite that are common to all Irish players. That sounds to me like a recipe for quite a decent midfielder. A similar theory can be floated about a child from Africa blessed with incredible athleticism and, say, the bloody-mindedness of Cork.
The word indomitable comes to mind.