When Molly Scott got the call to join the Irish women’s sprint relay at the European Championships in Birmingham next week, her first requirement was to clear some time off work. Which for a full-time barrister based in the Four Courts in Dublin is not always a given.It helps that Scott is essentially self-employed and her work-train-life balance is far better served since moving to Dublin last year, rather than commuting back and forth from her home in Carlow like she was before.“I’ve only done two years, and you’re out of the part where you’re under a master, or devilling,” she says. “In the UK they call it pupillage. Everyone gets their own individual boss, but they’re called your master. So it’s your master-devil relationship. “So that’s over now, but there are a lot of rules, and a lot of traditions, that you have to get your head around. So many unspoken rules that you have to learn as well.”She’s understandably keen to compete in Birmingham. Four years ago, Scott was running the fastest times of her life, exchanging the Irish indoor 60m record with Rhasidat Adeleke, and on course to compete in the 100m at the 2022 European Championships. Then two weeks before, she tore the posterior tibial tendon in her left ankle, which “blew up” during a training session, requiring an almost year-long recovery. That was ultimately helped by some chance advice from leading New York ballerina Candy Tong, who she discovered had sustained a similar injury.“I had a 17cm longitudinal tear, that’s the tendon underneath the inside of your ankle. It was a tough one, because in Ireland they certainly hadn’t seen it before. It was rare and I think it was a combination of things. I’d also had Covid, and I think I trained too soon in hindsight after. I’d just recovered, it was my first session, that’s when it happened,” says Scott.“It felt like my ankle had shattered into glass. It’s an unusual injury, I couldn’t find anyone in the world that had the same one. Then I found the ballerina from New York, Candy Tong, and I reached out to her.Ireland's Molly Scott in action during the women's 4x100m heats. Photograph: Inpho “She was great, but she was the only other one I could find, and we were ‘oh, we have the same tendon injury, let’s bond over this’. But that’s the level of desperation I felt, because I had no idea.”It’s still a busy time, and the 26-year-old Scott wouldn’t have it any other way. She continued to prioritise the training as much as possible until the end of 2024, before fully committing as a barrister. “Most barristers I know, they’re working weekends, they’re working at night. To try and balance it with my training normally, late afternoon, I would leave, then by the time I get back at 7pm or 8pm that’s when I have to fill in the hours I missed. And then the weekends as well.“Before that I was commuting. That was just the nail in the coffin. I was getting up at 6.30am, commuting to the train station from Carlow, then to Heuston, then the Four Courts, spending a whole day there, and then coming back again. That was pretty much a disaster. “But it was a good learning lesson too. I think the biggest thing I’ve actually taken from training and working is if you’re doing both, you need to understand what kind of battery you have.”Her third-place finish in the 100m at the National Championships last month earned her a spot in the sprint relay, a team she also made at the 2018 European Championships in Berlin. [ Sky’s the limit for several Irish medal hopes at the EuropeansOpens in new window ]“Obviously, you go in wanting to win. But for where I’m at, and for the depth of the field that day, I was pretty happy getting third, because I think it was the most stacked it had ever been,” says Scott. “To be honest, that was like the first big injury I’ve had and, touch wood, it is the only one I’ve had. You can say, well, things happen for a reason, but I don’t know, do they? Sometimes life’s just hard, isn’t it? Those were the cards that I was given.”