Niall Treacy, short track speed skater and University of Nottingham sport scholar, has been selected to represent Great Britain at the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Milano Cortina. Everyone at the University of Nottingham is proud to see Niall's progression and efforts result in this fantastic achievement. Ahead of Niall hitting the ice in Italy, we recently spoke with him to find out more about how the last few years have culminated in the upcoming games and his thoughts on the challenge ahead.
Great to meet with you again Niall ahead of an exciting few weeks ahead for yourself. How has it been for you over the past couple of years since we last met in 2024?
So, after the Beijing Games in 2022 I knew that I didn't want to stop at there - I'd like to try and compete at Milano Cortina. In Beijing I only competed in one distance and reflecting on that shortly after, I sort of set the goal that I'd like to go and do three in 2026. I only competed in the 1,000 metres last time and building up to these games I’ve been working towards competing in the 500 metres and 1,500 metres too.
With that, over the past few years my world ranking has progressively just improved and improved, so it has felt like I have been on the right track across all the distances. I think maybe the one that was the biggest question mark for me was the 5,000 metres, because I'm not the most natural sprinter, but it’s something that I’ve worked on a lot. Working with Tim Lawrenson (Lead strength & conditioning coach at the University of Nottingham) in the High Performance Zone at David Ross Sports Village, we’ve done a lot of work on making myself more explosive alongside being able to deal with multiple races of longer distances. In the last two to three years I’ve achieved a European Championship medal in the 1,000m and then last year got a medal in the same distance on the World Tour, so I feel like a more established World Cup and international skater, and I’m very happy to now go with three distances at the games.
With you excelling at those events, have you been competing against athletes that you'll be coming up against in the upcoming games? If so, has that given you a benchmark to understand how it could go in Italy?
Definitely. This season I’ve done four qualifiers, and you'll basically race everybody that you're going to race at the games. There are some people might not compete at those, but once they are all done you have a good idea of who's going to be there and where you rank in each distance. If you really wanted to, you could work out what your first race is going to be because it's done on those rankings, but it's not something I really want to do. I don't want to be thinking about it this far ahead. I think I'll just find out on the day and just race!
Are you just going to go in and focus on doing your race & not worry about who's around you?
One hundred percent. I think that’s been my mentality going into each race in the qualifiers and the World Championships, and I think it’ll be the same when I get to Milano Cortina. There'll be about five to eight athletes each heat and it's basically the top two that go through. So, my mentality is that I'm just here to get top two in this initial race and go from there. To me, it doesn't matter too much who you're racing because I've raced these guys quite a lot and the results change all the time. I think that's the beauty of Short Track Speed Skating because somebody can go in as the clear favourite, but because of the unpredictability of the sport anything can happen. So that's something I keep in mind and focus on making sure I perform at my very best and see what comes of it.
In terms of the format, is there heats and then a final?
Yes, it differs for each distance. For the 500m and 1,000m to qualify for the final it'll be heats then quarters and semi-finals, and then for the 1,500m because there'll be more people in each race it's only quarter finals and semi-finals to qualify. Those races will also be spread wider across the whole two weeks, so I’ll possibly be racing every other day. It will be something I've never really done before because again, at the last Games I only had one distance, so once I was then knocked out of that distance, I was done. Whereas, this time it will be a new challenge, having to reset after races and go into another distance and competition essentially.
So, are there advantages and disadvantages to doing more distances because it gives you more chances, however it's more taxing on the body because of the heavier schedule?
Possibly. I did do all three distances at the recent European Championships and your body does take a hit after a weekend of racing like that. However, that was over a shorter period than Milano Cortina will be so hopefully that experience will have helped, and the challenge ahead may actually be a bit kinder on the body in some way. I think the biggest challenge for me will more than likely be maintaining my highest level of performance and being switched on to perform for a longer period. Normally, like the European Championships, we're only competing for a few days, but with these games it’s two weeks. That will probably be the biggest challenge for me.
In terms of these games compared to other competitions you race at, it's going to be much bigger. How have you found the experience so far, and how does it compare to 2022?
It’s going to be huge. We’ve recently done our kitting out and that was something that we didn't get to experience before because of coronavirus. I couldn’t meet any of the staff members or anything like that, whereas this time we went and met some of the other athletes and staff in Sheffield which was a great experience to be a part of. I was fortunate enough to familiarize myself with the venue in February where they had a test event, and that was the first time I’d been to Milan. Growing up, I did a lot of competitions in Italy, but they would mainly be in different cities like Turin. When we were at the venue they were starting to put up all the branding around the city which was pretty cool. I’m really looking forward to going out and competing there.
Obviously, we know it's going to be a much bigger occasion and at the venue there's going to be way more people because in 2022 there was just the volunteers and other competitors watching. This time I've got my friends and family coming out to watch me race so it'll be incredible to have them all there to support me - I'm really looking forward to it. My family will be flying out to support me and so will my fiancé and her family who live in Canada. However, it’ll be the first time they’ve all met so that’s slightly nerve wracking!
In terms of studying at the University of Nottingham, Milano Cortina has been quite a big focus for you over the last two or three years, how have you managed to balance both the aims of getting to these games whilst achieving your degree?
Achieving a degree is something that I’ve always wanted to do because short track speed skating is not going to last forever. I think that was something that I didn't quite recognize initially, because before I started studying at the University of Nottingham skating was virtually all I was surrounded with. To have another focus - Industrial Economics – has been super beneficial. It hasn’t been easy and for the first two years I was doing full time training and full-time education, but the Business School have been incredibly helpful. There help in working around my schedule with catching up on lectures I couldn’t attend, as well as certain exams - I couldn't have asked for anything more. I've now done sixty credits of my final year, and I did that over one year, which was a lot nicer workload. There's still challenges with my scheduling, but the university have always supported me. I’ve been able to take a break in my studies to focus on these games, and I plan to finish my final credits afterwards.
How's it going to feel switching back into studying and finishing your degree?
I'm looking forward to it. In this past year, it's obviously been stressful with speed skating so it would be nice to have that other aspect of focus back. Hopefully I haven't forgotten everything that I’ve learnt! I've just done a standard pre-games test for head concussion, and they were asking me to solve problems with numbers and I was thinking - this is going to be fun! I worry that I feel quite out of the swing of academics already, and it's only been a year since I've since I've stopped studying. Hopefully it won't take me too long to get back to where I was at!
Are you looking further ahead? Is the 2030 cycle the goal?
I think it's something that I'm thinking about and something that people have started to ask me. In my head, I still feel like I'm pretty young to the sport, however I have realised that I am actually getting older believe it or not! If I go for another four years, it will be my last four years and I think it's something that I want to do. I love racing, I love competing, and I'd love to try and compete . I think the question would just be will my body be able to hold up? I work with Nabeel here at the at the university quite a lot to look after my recovery to make sure that I’ll be able to. The question for me is - do I think that I can keep performing at a high level? However, right now, I'm just trying to just focus on what's in front of me, and then I think we'll ask that question after.
With that lens, how are you viewing these games in Milano Cortina?
I feel like this is my real opportunity in a way. I feel that four years ago was certainly a learning experience. This time I'm coming into them on the back of some good performances. I feel like I'm a much more established skater in all the distances and I feel that if I can race correctly, and things happened to go my way - I don't see why I can't get a good result.
I imagine your schedule when is laid out and you know exactly what you're doing and when. Is that something you're looking forward to – being in that environment?
I think so. It's very different to when you're back home because you're obviously organizing your schedule like everybody else does, but when you go to the games, it's all taken care of. You probably don't even, look at a calendar, the time or what day of the week it is - the support staff do that for you! You actually get pretty lazy in that sense, but your job is just to focus on your training and racing. It’s a nice thing to have, but hopefully I won't get too reliant on it for when I come back home!
You’ve been a part of the Great Britain program for a while now and you're based in Nottingham. How beneficial has it been to have both your academics and sport based in this city?
I think it's super helpful. The facilities that we have here at the University of Nottingham with the Sports Injury Clinic and High Performance Zone are fantastic. I've been to a lot of other national training centres in speed skating in different countries, and a lot of them just don't compare. To have those facilities that we're able to utilize as a team but also as a scholar here as well, you feel hugely supported. Obviously having the National Ice Centre so close by has been super helpful too because the program is effectively self-funded, and the help that the team there have provided on my doorstep has also been massive.
As you come towards the end of your time studying in Nottingham, what will you take away from your time here at the university?
I think it's been brilliant - I wouldn't have changed very much about my experience here at all. Short track speed skating is quite a niche sport, so in some ways isn’t as well supported, but I can’t say that applies to the University of Nottingham. The support from everyone involved has been important for me. Phil Wood (Scholarship and Recruitment Manager) has always said that whatever I need the University is here for me, and that they want me to achieve as many of my goals as possible. I’m very grateful for that. At the start I was unsure whether I could do both my sport and studying at the same time, but if I could go back four years - I'd say to myself to one hundred percent do it.