Patrick Tiernan might be our best distance runner since Mottram

Young distance runner Patrick Tiernan is a “superstar in the making’’, according to Steve Moneghetti.

Patrick Tiernan chases home Olympic 5000m and 10,000m champion Mo Farah in the 3000m at the Racers Grand Prix in Jamaica last month.

The godfather of Australian distance running, Steve Moneghetti, is a fairly hard marker, but he has no hesitation in naming 22-year-old Patrick Tiernan “a superstar in the making’’.

Australia has been without a truly world-class distance runner since Craig Mottram muscled in on the African monopoly a decade ago.

But Moneghetti has no doubt that Tiernan, who will run the 5000m and 10,000m at next month’s world titles, has the star quality to make an international impact.

“For his age, he’s so far ahead of the curve,’’ Moneghetti said.

“I’m particularly impressed by his 13th at the world cross-country championships this year at his first time there. It’s the toughest race in the world. My first time there I finished 101st (although Moneghetti would go on to finish fourth and sixth in later years).’’

“He reminds me of a young Deek (former world marathon champion Robert de Castella) because he’s a really strong guy, but then he’s such a smooth mover, and he’s shown in the last month that he has good top-end speed, so he’s a combination of Deek and Mottram. I can’t speak more highly of him.’’

Tiernan has crept up on Australian distance running, following a different path from most as he developed from junior to senior ranks, before exploding into the sport’s consciousness in the past year.

Born in Longreach in western Queensland, he grew up in Toowoomba, where his first love was cricket, before he grew too tall to be a batsman and his school physical education teacher channelled him into cross-country running.

He was in his first year of university in Brisbane when a New Zealand coach working for famed athletics school Villanova University in Pennsylvania, recruited him and he was out of sight and mind for three years, before he qualified to run the 5000m at last year’s Rio Olympics.

After his Games debut, he went back to the US and became the first Australian since 1960 to win the NCAA cross-country title last November, before returning home to win the national 10,000m title at the Zatopek meet in December.

He went back to Villanova to continue training with his coach Marcus O’Sullivan, an Irish Olympian who won the world indoor 1500m title three times, before emerging with a bang in May.

In the past two months he has set personal best times over 3000m, 5000m and 10,000m that rank him among the top four Australians in history over all three distances.

In only the second 10,000m race of his life he beat home a quality field at the prestigious Payton Jordan Invitational at Stanford University in California, setting a personal best time of 27min 29.81sec, which ranks him in the top 10 in the world this year. Canadian Mo Ahmed, who finished second, was fourth in the 5000m at last year’s Olympics.

Tiernan followed up by setting a 5000m best of 13:13.44 at the Diamond League meet in Eugene, Oregon, and a 12-second 3000m best of 7:41.62 to finish second behind Olympic 5000m and 10,000m champion Mo Farah at Usain Bolt’s farewell meet in Jamaica.

He cut another chunk off his time at the Paris Diamond League meet last weekend, finishing seventh in 7:39.28.

He has the chance of a rematch with Farah in tomorrow’s London Diamond League meet, where both will contest the 3000m.

“If I can place well there and potentially win the mile in Ireland (his last race in Cork) that will set me up pretty well for the world championships,’’ he says.

Tiernan is a level-headed type, true to his country roots, and in his first year on the international circuit he is keeping his race plan simple and trying to learn as much as he can from every outing.

“I think after Rio (where he did not qualify for the 5000m final) I realised that you have to try and win races rather than try to qualify or run a time,’’ he said. “You have to put yourself in a position to try to win races, and my results are coming with that mentality.’’

After finishing his mathematics degree last year, he also has more time to devote to training and has ramped up his strength and conditioning program.

Despite his inexperience with the distance, he suspects the 10,000m will become his primary event over the next few years.

“Having the cross-country background helps me to drag the race out a bit,’’ he said.

“I just have to get a lot stronger. Those top guys are all pretty fresh at the end of the race, which is why they can surge, but I’m tired at the bell lap. That’s just something that will take time.

“Maybe it will be a couple of years down the road, or maybe it will be even sooner.’’

No matter how long it takes, Tiernan is determined to get there and he will be readily identifiable in every race he runs along the way.

At 188cm tall, he’s the same height as Mottram (who was nicknamed the Big Mzungu, or white man, by his African rivals), so he towers over virtually every international field he is in.

“It’s not a tall man’s race,’’ Tiernan says, although that doesn’t bother him in the least.

Moneghetti doesn’t think it’s a problem, either.

“His height doesn’t matter because he’s got that rhythm,’’ he said.