THOMAS BARR SAYS he will consider his athletics future in the coming weeks and says that while he says he is “swinging towards” retirement, he has no concrete plan at the moment.

Barr has previously hinted at plans to retire this year, but says he will not make any firm decisions after recently returning home from the Paris Olympics where he competed with the 4x400m relay team. Earlier this season, he was part of the quartet who won a gold medal at the European Championships in Rome.

The Waterford native just missed out on Olympic qualification for the men’s 400m hurdles which is his specialist event in which he won a bronze medal at the 2018 European Championships. He also earned a fourth-place finish in the hurdles at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

“When I was walking off the track, I was emotional, because athletics on the world stage has been a huge part of my life for so long,” Barr replied when asked what his thoughts are for his future in the sport.

“I love performing at a high level. Racing is the part of the sport that I love. I enjoy the process. I enjoy training, with my training group it’s good fun, but for me, racing is why I’m doing it.

“The kick you get, the adrenaline rush you get from competing is second to none. So I will miss that. I remember walking off the track in Paris thinking, “If I do hang up my spikes, this is my last race. God, this is the last time I’m walking into a mixed zone’”. It was surreal, and it kind of caught me on the hop. I was getting a lump in my throat, I was like, “Jesus, this is a lot more than I was expecting”.

The 2025 World Championships will be staged in Tokyo, where the last Olympics was held. However, crowds were not permitted to attend due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Barr admits that he is tempted to return to the Japanese capital and perform in front of a packed stadium.

“I would love to keep going for that reason. I would love to go to Tokyo, and see it in full flight.

“I’d love to keep training. The other side of it is, it’s taking so much effort to keep the body in one piece, which is the big thing.

“I just need to weigh up all my options. I’ll probably know in the next couple of weeks when it starts lashing down rain and it’s cold and everyone is heading to training, and I’m like, ‘Do I really want this or not?’ So I’ll give it a couple of weeks and mull everything over.”

Barr added that he feels he has more time to finalise his decision as the 2025 outdoor season will have a late start. A recent conversation with Hayley and Drew Harrison to review the 2024 season left him feeling encouraged to continue with running. But he will consider all factors before making a call, including the funding that is allocated to him.

“I am definitely swinging towards the side of retiring at the moment but I went through training with my coaches. I came away from that thinking, I might go again. I know myself: the decision will be made for me in that first week or two of training, if I go back to sample it a little bit. It’ll be in the next two months, for sure. It also depends on how funding looks. That’s a conversation I’ll have to have with our PD, because I am at that point where I can’t keep trying to get by and get by.

“If there isn’t a decent bit of funding coming my way I will have to look at going into full-time work which could be the deciding factor, that could make the decision for me. If it’s actually worth my while doing, then I’ll keep going.”

Thomas Barr were speaking as VMTV’s coverage of top-class athletics continues in the coming weeks with the conclusion of the Wanda Diamond League.