Coming into the final lap, it all looked so predictable.
It was Saturday afternoon in Dublin, the penultimate race of the day at the Irish University Championships, and in the mostly empty stands of Morton Stadium, no one seemed to care all that much about what was happening on the track. With 400 meters to run, the podium spots seemed pre-ordained, the gaps between the athletes too big to overcome.
You can hear Dennehy’s call below. Skip ahead to 3 minutes for the best part.
Then a 21-year-old from Cork named Phil Healy took the baton—about 80 meters behind the leaders in fifth place—and we all lost our minds.
At the time, I was commentating on the live stream along with Ronan Duggan, both of us aware that no more than 200 people were listening. As a result, our race calls were a relaxed mix of irrelevant asides and often exaggerated excitement about the finishes which—truth be told—were sometimes not very exciting.
With 200 meters to run, though, we began to realize this one was different.
The leading athlete from University College Dublin began to slow, appearing to hand the advantage to Michelle Finn of the University of Limerick, a 3,000-meter steeplechase specialist who is qualified for the Olympics and was merely dipping her toes into uncharted waters with this 4x400-meter excursion.
Finn powered to the lead on the final turn, only to suddenly find her tank beginning to run dry. Right at that moment, we spotted the red singlet back in fifth, still 15 yards behind with 100 meters to run.
Maybe it was the sight of Healy’s red vest or maybe it was because of how absolutely doomed her plight had seemed just 30 seconds earlier, but at that moment I roared into the microphone: “UCC from the depths of hell are powering through!”
It was then that Ronan Duggan jumped in to note the distressed state of the athlete who seemed such a certain winner moments earlier: “Michelle Finn is dying!”
Without a trace of hyperbole—honest—I added in what could only be called an excited child-like squeal: “She’s dead!”
As the race reached an absurd, but completely compelling conclusion, my voice was somewhere between a dog whistle and a squealing pig, with the last words I managed being: “She’s out on her feet!”
Thankfully, my colleague was there to save the day, simply roaring as the winner powered across the line, because nothing else felt appropriate to define the levels of WTF? which had just occurred.
“Phil Healy,” he shouted. “What…a...runnnnn!”
The stadium exhaled collectively, stunned, and we stood there speechless, appreciative, though slightly concerned for the athlete herself, who in her bid to reach the line first had face-planted hard against the mondo track.
There was a definitive lesson in there, one about maintaining hope in the face of ridiculous odds, though at the time we were all too shocked to contemplate such matters.
Only in the days that followed did national news outlets in Ireland pick up the story and post the video, which sent a wildfire of appreciation raging across social media. By Monday it had spread to Britain, on Tuesday the United States, and in what is still one of the most bizarre emails to pop into my inbox, earlier today “The Dan Patrick Show” was asking for an interview about the race call.
An old track rival from my teens who lives in New Zealand texted to say that the biggest TV channel over there had it on their nightly news—our frantic squeals of delight and delirium afflicting the comfortable in homes 12,000 miles away, as surreal as it is hilarious.
Make no mistake, though, the athletes were the stars.
At a time of declining faith in the sport, which has left many wondering what the point is in the Olympic movement any more, they served up a necessary reminder of track and field’s enduring beauty.
The race was won in a time outside four minutes, slow by most collegiate standards, and perhaps that’s what is best of all. Because here was a group of female athletes, running for neither cash or fame, but still giving every last ounce of their being in the name of pure competition.
I’ll never forget it.
Cathal Dennehy is a Dublin-based freelance journalist who has written extensively for Runner’s World and Running Times. We’ve never heard him so excited.
Cathal Dennehy is a freelance writer based in Dublin, Ireland, who covers the sport for multiple outlets from Irish newspapers to international track websites. As an athlete, he was Irish junior cross-country champion and twice raced the European Cross Country, but since injury forced his retirement his best athletic feat has been the Irish beer mile record. He’s happiest when he’s running or writing stories about world-class athletes.
