If McMullen can make that leap onto the global stage, it will represent a remarkable achievement for an athlete who by his own admission didn’t appear an international athlete in the making for nearly all his teenage years.
Living on a farm in the south Derry hamlet of Newbridge, McMullen was encouraged by his mother Sarah to be active as he tried gymnastics, swimming, horse riding and even Irish dancing before joining Mid-Ulster Athletics Club in Magherafelt in his final year at primary school.
“I made a lot of friends in athletics even though I wasn’t that good until I was about 18 years old. I persevered because I enjoyed athletics and mostly because I enjoyed the company of the people around the sport.
“My last year at secondary school was the only year I qualified for the Irish Schools Championships and I won the long jump and finished second in the triple jump.
“I went from a 6.36m personal best in the long jump when I was 17 to 7.28m when I was 18 so put on nearly a metre in a year.”
But after jumping 7.61m as a 20-year-old in 2011, McMullen didn’t better that for almost four years before he sailed to 7.80m as he won the Irish Indoor title in Athlone in February 2015.
The leap earned him his first major international vest a couple of weeks later as he represented Ireland at the European Indoor Championships in Prague.
