Phil Healy: The relay is everyone’s ticket to Paris

PHIL Healy’s goal of becoming a two-time Olympian took a step closer at the recent World Indoor Championships.

The Ballineen Bullet ran the first leg for the Irish women’s 4x400m relay team that finished fifth in the world, with Healy stating afterwards that the team belongs in the major finals. They also set a new national record in the heat 

She has a point – the Irish women’s 4x400m relay team has contested finals at the most recent European Championships, World outdoors and now World indoors. 

Healy was part of the Irish mixed 4x400m relay team that qualified for the Olympic final in Tokyo in 2021, and given the consistency of these teams at the highest levels, the Bandon AC star sees the relay as the best route to this summer’s Olympics.

‘The relay is everyone’s ticket to Paris,’ Healy told the Star Sport Podcast. 

‘Hopefully we can get the women’s 4x4 there this time. We were in Tokyo with the mixed relay so hopefully we can get there with both relays. 

‘Individually, the aim is always to qualify as well. I will probably focus more on the 200 in the outdoor season because I gained a lot of ranking points indoors; I am currently within the ranking for Paris so it’s about maintaining that and pushing myself further up the board. But it’s all about the relay for now.’

The World Relays in the Bahamas at the start of May (4th-5th) offer the opportunity to qualify for the Olympics.

‘The top 32 countries in the world will be selected to go there, we are well within that. Fourteen of the 16 places in Paris will come from the World Relays so everything is to play for,’ Healy explained, and that’s her next target. 

She’s fitting in a critical block of training for the next six weeks before life gets a lot busier. The relay team will fly out to Florida at the end of April before hopping across to the Bahamas for the World Relays. She’s also planning a packed May and June as the Olympic qualification window is open until June 30th. 

She’s ready to attack these next few months with a smile on her face too. The World Relays was also an important moment for Healy. She has made no secret of her challenges in 2022 and ’23, so her return to form has come at the right time in an Olympic year.

‘If I rewind back to last summer I took myself off the squad for the World Championships in Budapest because I didn’t feel I was in the shape and didn’t feel I had something to offer the team. That was hard at the time but looking back it was a decision that I needed to make,’ Healy explained.

‘To be out there with the team again, give it my all, to be back to my best, and enjoy it on the world stage was great. That was my first World Indoor final as well, and then to be part of a team that breaks a national record, it felt great.’