Medal drought GAA’s fault?
The ‘local’ is always a hotbed for insightful thoughts on current events and Friday night was no different. First, we all agreed our secondary school geography teacher has a lot to answer for after discovering approximately 20 countries none of us knew existed. Eritrea, Lesotho, Myanmar?
A couple of my team-mates are renowned for their skills with a rifle and we joked they should move to Burkina Faso to represent them in shooting at the next games in Brazil.
We also wondered how a developed country like Ireland with such an interest in sport doesn’t produce more Olympians.
For the second consecutive Games our only realistic medal hopes rest inside the boxing ring.
When it was announced London was hosting the Games, it’s disappointing we didn’t follow our neighbours’ lead and invest heavily in attempting to build a team capable of winning medals. But we agreed probably the biggest reason we fail to produce Olympians is because the GAA has a stranglehold from an early age on all the top sporting talent in the country.
From an early age, Irish kids are brought to their local GAA club and for many this will be the full extent of their sporting endeavours.
Considering the volume of high-performing athletes in modern-day football and hurling you can’t but think that if the GAA didn’t exist many would have excelled at various codes and possibly made the Olympic stage. Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron made an interesting point recently when pointing out the GB team was predominantly made up of middle class men and women who had been through the private school system.
Indeed many Olympic events such as rowing, equestrian and hockey are typically middle class pastimes and most youngsters in this country are not directed towards these sports when the sporting future is being mapped out by their parents.
If you watch some of the Olympic events such as the dressage and synchronised swimming you wonder how in God’s name anybody got involved in the first place.
Most Irish schools simply don’t cater for budding Olympians, with the primary focus being Gaelic football, hurling or, to a lesser extent, rugby and soccer.
Can you imagine a young lad from St Kieran’s College, Kilkenny or St Jarlath’s of Tuam heading into school one morning to tell his mates he was quitting the GAA team to spend more time working on his backstroke!
Many of us would have spent this weekend flicking the channels between championship matches in Thurles and Tullamore and the happenings in London. Most GAA enthusiasts would scoff at sports such as gymnastics or badminton or beach volleyball before flicking back to a ‘real man’s’ game.
GAA fans have a propensity for being somewhat blinkered when it comes to appreciating the complexities of other sporting codes.
Many of us wouldn’t understand why someone would want to spend their life dancing about a gym floor or hanging off a high bar instead of pucking a sliotar or kicking an O’Neills.
If the GAA didn’t exist and I wasn’t playing Gaelic football I always wonder what sport I would have chosen.
Watching the opening ceremony, I thought what an amazing an experience it must be for those athletes. After a culmination of a lifetime’s commitment and hard work, you could see the sheer elation and pride on their faces.
If I was to choose a different sport it would have to be something that could possibly get me to an Olympics.
I fear I am a bit leaden-legged for gymnastics and I was always crap at throwing snowballs so I don’t think the javelin or shot-put would be a runner.
Boxing would have been a possibility and I always liked the intensity and competitiveness of rowing.
I spoke to someone recently who attended a training session of the Chinese gymnastics team.
Having spent his lifetime involved in the GAA at all levels, he couldn’t get over the sheer athleticism of the gymnasts.
He described how one male gymnast couldn’t do his normal warm-up due to a sore knee so instead proceeded to stand on his hands for almost a half an hour. !
Yeah, but can he kick a wet O’Neills over the bar off the ground from 50 yards out?
