Luke McCann bids to fulfil Olympic dream in New York

The oldest Olympic stadium still in use can only hold 14,000, as it remains a listed structure and cannot be altered, but it seemed to create the noise of many, many more, feverishly whooping and hollering as Armand Duplantis tried to beat his own pole vault record of 6.24m.

He narrowly failed in each of his three attempts, staring at the sun for what seemed like an age after his final squirm kissed the bar.

The 24-year-old will repeat the routine in Rome; gold medal secured, then record attempted.

Femke Bol was also there in the full flow of her hurdling majesty ahead of a momentous summer for the Dutch woman. For supreme talents as these, the road to Olympic glories have been mapped out with the precision of military command.

But some, like Irish 1,500m runner Luke McCann, have had different choices to make this summer; not necessarily prompted by personal preference. We meet him as he has just scorched the searing surface, running a 3.33.66 that will mark him down as the fourth fastest Irishman of all time, after completing his second personal best in five days.

However, the Dubliner will not be in Rome this week, chiefly because he has not yet been confirmed for a certain summer occasion in Paris.

That is why he has hot-tailed it from Ostrava to Stockholm and, tomorrow, will be featuring in the New York Grand Prix.

While the 3.33.66 may have been a personal milestone, it remains a statistical irrelevance to Olympic organisers; he missed the qualification time by .16 seconds. He feels like throwing up.

His ranking is trending towards Paris but he needs to make sure. And he and his team just don’t believe Rome is the place

“Yeah, it’s every kid’s dream,” he says in the immediate aftermath. “You don’t dream of being a European finalist, you dream of being an Olympian.

“You don’t walk around with European competitor on your CV, you walk around with Olympian next to your name, that’s always been my goal.

“I’ve been so unbelievable proud to represent my country and every opportunity, I’ve qualified for every championship since 2021 and I’d absolutely love it, it’s my dream. This was a decision to make two-and-a-half months ago that we’d be giving Rome a skip. I was in much better shape than I thought in Ostrava where I ran 3.34, it was a PB.

“Then it was, ‘Ah do we do Rome now!’ But my coach [Thomas Dreissigacker] has a plan and we’re sticking to it.”

Championship racing is not always fast racing so the difficult call had to be made.

“I questioned Thomas because I’m in the shape to make a European final, but he said the aim is Paris and you’ve got to remember that. As much as I’d love to do it, it’s a decision to go for Paris and yeah we just kind of stuck to it.

“People are saying if you make the final you’d take the time out. It’s very rare you Europeans run really quickly and you have to be in medal territory. It’s a lot to bargain for. This was just a safer way of doing that.”

Injury has complicated the 2024 journey, a stress fracture arriving like a lightning bold out of nowhere at the start of the year and jack-knifing him for almost two months.

“I went to a specialist in London and he said you could see it from the back of a bus, it was that big. And then it was eight weeks of absolute nothing, just Netflix and chill kind of vibes.

“Any other time but this year! I was gutted. I was in the shape of my life back in January and this thing just crept out of nowhere. No symptoms at all and then suddenly I couldn’t walk.

“We got the scan and it was probably the worst-case scenario.”

After a rust-buster in Nancy, which he felt was closer to a 3.42 than the actual 3.37 he ran for a ninth place, he knew he could trust his body once more. And so he went to Ostrava 10 days ago to just let it rip. “I just went in, balls on the line, have at it and see where we go. 3.34 and I came away going actually I feel pretty good after that, I feel very strong.

“And I spoke with my coach before this race and said I just want to be aggressive. The plan was always to get on the pacer. And I knew it was going to hurt.

“I was at the bell in a split I’d never seen before, 2.35 on the bell and I was like, ‘Wow, I need to hang on here.’

“I’ve been feeling great for months now, I’ve had no pain. Nothing to complain about now. I feel like I’m really on track for Paris now and I wasn’t saying that two months ago.”

After New York, he has one more try, should it be required, at the Paavo Nurni games in Turkey on June 18.

A late developer, the 28-year-old was here in Sweden four years ago when Duplantis was forging his reputation. The Tokyo Olympics seemed like a distant prospect even if he was already the fastest 1,000 metres runner in Irish history.

It didn’t happen then but now it seems so close he can almost touch it. It has been a race against time but he is confident he can beat the clock.