I never thought I would be a professional athlete

“I never thought I would be a professional athlete.”Borzakovski, in fact, started his working life as a welder. Unlike Alf Tupper, he couldn’t combine the shifts on the shop floor with the toil on the training track. Even the Tough of the Track, though, could not burn off the opposition quite like Borzakovski can.Half-milers ahead: The greats he followsPeter Snell: The Kiwi was 21 when he scored sensational upset victory over Roger Moens in 1960 Olympic 800m. Four years later won 800m and 1500m.Dave Wottle: Wearing trademark golf-cap, the American was 22 when his finishing kick won Olympic 800m in Munich in 1972 – earning nickname Wottle the Throttle.Alberto Juantorena: The Cuban was 25 and in first season as serious 800m runner when he “opened his legs and showed his class” en route to the first of his two Olympic golds in 1976.Steve Ovett: Took European silver as 18-year-old behind Yugoslav Luciano Susanji in 1974. Six years later won Olympic 800m final in Moscow.Sebastian Coe: Won European indoor 800m at 20 in 1977. Two years later set the first of two world records at the distance.Wilson Kipketer: Broke through as world leader by winning the Bislett Games race at 23 in 1994. Has since broken the world record three times outdoors and won three world championship titles outdoors..

Most weekday mornings during the Irish summer of 1999, the phone would ring in a pub in the County Kerry market town of Listowel. Nuala Kenneally, the wife of the publican, could have set her watch by the timing of these calls Which is not to say that she welcomed them. Most weekday mornings during the Irish summer of 1999, the phone would ring in a pub in the County Kerry market town of Listowel. Nuala Kenneally, the wife of the publican, could have set her watch by the timing of these calls. Which is not to say that she welcomed them.
“Mrs Kenneally? Rick Barham, from the Swans.”"Oh yes.”Polite, but absolutely non-committal; certainly not friendly. It was 11pm back in Australia, and Rick Barham, the recruiting officer for the Sydney Swans, of the Australian Football League, would mentally gird himself for another battle. “It was like the Australian fast bowlers of old, charging in to Geoff Boycott – it was a stonewall response,” Barham said.Like recruiting agents the world over, Barham arrived at his life’s calling with a crystal ball, the type that could enable him to look at a talented young player, then make the leap in faith, imagination and experience to extrapolate the appearance of that same youngster in the senior grade of Australian Rules Football.But AFL recruiting agents also need the charm, guile and persistence of a travelling salesman, as they try to convince gifted and impressionable youngsters, but more particularly, their careful and more cynical parents, of the need to commit themselves to their particular club.In Nuala Kenneally, Barham, who had travelled to football grounds in the remotest corners of Australia to view prospects, had about met his match.

The individual they were both concerned with was a former Ireland junior 400 metres finalist, a national junior representative in both Gaelic and association football. At 13, Tadgh (pronounced Tige) Kenneally was offered an apprenticeship with Blackburn Rovers.Now he was 18. The Swans wanted to extract him from the bosom of his family and bring him to Sydney, on the other side of the world, because they thought he had a future in a code of football the Kenneallys had never heard of. Nuala clung as fiercely to her youngest son as only a mother can. Her husband Tim, a former All-Ireland Gaelic representative, could see the possibilities of a professional sporting career for Tadgh and was less opposed. Of all the family, Noel Kenneally was, in his own way, the most encouraging.

“You lucky fuck,” he said to his younger brother.With “a lot of thinking, and a lot of trauma”, Kenneally said, it was decided that he would go to Sydney “[My parents] thought I was too young. It was a hard thing to do, because I was quite successful back home, and I could easily have stayed. I had plenty of choices – I would have gone to university and played Gaelic football – but this is an adventure It’s nice to be here. A great experience.”The Swans were alerted to Kenneally’s possibilities by Paul Early, the first Irish player to make the grade in what was then the Victorian Football League, in the early 1980s. Early played one senior game for Melbourne, but then returned home after the sudden death of his father.