Since then, he has won two Irish Schools Cross Country titles in addition to landing Leinster and Irish Schools 5,000m championships on the track.
But it took Sunday’s achievement for him to finally arrive in Ireland’s wider sporting consciousness as his individual performance saw the Under-20s narrowly miss out on another team bronze on countback.
“I’m so happy, I don’t believe it,” said Gidey afterwards, admitting his target had been a top-10 finish.
“It’s just amazing. It was very fast at the start and a little bit hard, but my body is very strong.
“I’m so happy because every time I’m looking for the Irish team, what places we finish. My [target] was for Ireland, my country, to win.”
What made Gidey’s performance all the sweeter was the fact he very nearly missed out on the Lisbon championships altogether because of visa problems, with the Eritrea-born athlete having to travel a day later than his team-mates when the issue was finally resolved.
