WHEN BRENDAN BOYCE lined up for the start of the men’s 50k race walk at the 2012 Olympic Games, his heart rate went through the roof.
Boyce had only completed two 50k race walks before London. As he stood on The Mall, Boyce’s only ‘previous’ with the event were the four hours, minutes and seven seconds it took him at Dudince in 2010 and the 3:57:58 time from Naumburg a year later.
And there he was. At he Olympic Games.
“I was playing it down in my own mind a little, but all the buzz just hit me at the start line,” Boyce says now, a week out from his next Olympic instalment – next Friday he goes under starter’s orders in Rio.
[adrotate group=”81″]“My heart rate away up to 120. I was just unprepared for that moment when your name is called out.
“I was lucky that I had a couple of minutes from I was called out until the gun went and the race actually started.
“I just wasn’t sure what to expect. That’s very important for people to realise now for Rio with athletes going for the first time. It’s completely different to the Euros or the Worlds. You need that experience.”
Boyce finished 29th in London, but has been upgraded since because of the disqualification, in retrospect, of Russian athletes.
[adrotate group=”76″]Boyce was the national 20km senior champion in 2010 and, a year later, he finished 15th at the World University Games 20km, held in Shenzhen, China.
Boyce showed promise as a youngster, competing in the Community Games and then national championships.
It was while he was studying in Coventry that Boyce began to concentrate on race walking.
He met Andi Drake, who was coaching some British internationals. It wasn’t a large group and Boyce became interested in their work and started training with English athlete Daniel King.
After two years in Coventry, Boyce was showing remarkable progress.
Drake upped sticks from Coventry and left for Leeds Metropolitan University, though.
The Race Walking Centre of Excellence is based in Leeds and Boyce answered his calling.
“I always had it in the back of head that I wanted to compete at the Olympics, but it only really dawned on me when I went to the UK in 2007,” he says.
“I was training with Daniel and I was like: ‘He’s not doing anything special’. He had an ‘A’ standard for Beijing. I was 21 and thought that I could do it.
[adrotate group=”37″]“Initially I planned to bypass Beijing and aim for London, but I made a standard and got it again in my first two races!”
For his second race in Naumburg, in September 2011, the Milford man had to shave 10 minutes and 7 seconds off his time to get an Olympic ‘A’ standard, which was 3 hours and 59 minutes.
He did it in 3:57:58,, more than a minute inside the qualifying standard.
He’s been on the rise since, but suffered disappointment last year when disqualified – while well on track for a p.b – at the World Championships in Beijing.
Post-London, he moved to Cork and has been training under the wing of Rob Heffernan, the 2013 World Champion, who was retrospectively awarded a bronze from the 2012 Olympics.
[adrotate group=”46″]As he prepares to depart for Rio, Boyce says: “I’ve done everything possible to be confident when I get on the start line.
“I believe that I deserve to be there and I have confidence and belief in myself. You don’t want to feel like a fraud on the start line at the Olympics. I’ve kept myself away from the distractions of the Village. I just want to go out, get a performance and show people what I’m capable of.”
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