They say winning is addictive and Jason Smyth is clearly hooked, nothing – or no one – about to stop him from claiming yet another sprint double inside the London Olympic Stadium.
If anything his 200m metres victory was the most emphatic of Smyth’s now seven gold medal wins at the World Para-athletics Championships – which began with a similar sprint double back in 2006.
He won another T13 category double in 2013, the 100m in 2015, and along with his two Paralympics doubles, has now put five 100m-200m titles back-to-back at a global Paralympics championships.
No wonder some people are losing count of his incredible medal haul.
He turned 30 earlier this month, and has come a long way from the Derry teenager who first emerged on the athletics scene in 2005 at a cold, wet and windy event at ALSAA track in Dublin, when he defeated Conal McNamara, then Ireland’s Athens 2004 Paralympics 400m silver medallist by a comfortable margin, at Irish Blind Sports Games.
Indeed in the aftermath of his latest win, Smyth immediately paid tribute to his wife, Elise, and daughter Evie, who in no small way continue to motivate him as the years pass by.
“I can’t stress how much my family mean to me,” said Smyth, who ran a season best of 21.40 seconds, leaving him well clear of Namibia’s Johannes Nambala, who pipped Mateusz Michaelski of Poland on the line for the silver.
“The reality is my family are the ones who are always there, and there’s nothing more incredible than coming around on the lap of honour after winning a gold medal to share and celebrate with Elise, and obviously Evie is not even two yet, and doesn’t quite understand, but it’s incredible, and only as she gets older, hopefully she can look at the things that I have achieved, and believes that she can achieve whatever she wants too.”
The emotion showing then, and why not: the Derry athlete had once again beaten Nambala to the 100 title at the Paralympics in Rio last summer, his third successive gold in that event (the 200m wasn’t included), and now remains unbeaten in Paralympics sport since 2005, at the age of the 18. That was the same season he won a European double, and no one has come close to stopping him since.
Following his 100m gold on Sunday, the same night Michael McKillop won 800m gold and the silver won by both Niamh McCarthy and Orla Barry in their discuss respective classes, it was the fifth medal for the Irish team so far: McKillop goes again over 1,500m on Saturday with every intention of completing his double.
For Smyth, who suffers from the degenerative vision impairement Stargardt’s disease, the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics aren’t now far off, where he would be chasing a sixth gold medal.
His best times – of 10.22 seconds in able-bodied competition, and a world record of 10.46 for Paralympic competition – may appear to be behind him, yet the opposition cannot seem to catch up.
Meanwhile at the 66th running of the Cork City Sports, Irish victories on the track proved hard to come by. Sean Tobin produced an excellent performance in one of the headline races, the men’s mile, finishing third in 3:57.00 behind the American Sam Prakel, who ran 3:55.89.
In the absence of Thomas Barr, Javier Culson of Puerto Rico won the 400m hurdles in 49.79, while Shiela Reid from Canada won the 3,000m in 8:54.61. Emma Coffey from Carrignavar did win the pole vault with a best clearance of 3.40m.
Local favourite Phil Healy ran a good 200m to finish third in 23.32, the victory there going to a delighted Crystal Emmanuel from Canada who was rewarded with a national record of 22.50
