Parents finally get their due at the finish line

Athletes never forget the force behind them, says Conall Ó Fátharta

IF any of the 65 Irish competitors at the Olympic Ceremony are lucky enough to have a medal placed around their necks in the next three weeks, virtually all will look to the stands for one group of people — their parents.

Virtually every sporting event that captures the public imagination has had those unforgettable moments, when a mother or father is embraced by their child after reaching the pinnacle of their sporting careers.

Few people are lucky enough to ever reach those heights, so when they do, they rush for the people who started them on that journey.

Invariably, mum and dad have been the people who got up at the crack of dawn to drive them to the pool, to the track, or to the pitch — the people who first started them on the road to greatness.

No surprise then when, as adults, after achieving the ultimate success, they are overcome by emotion in the embrace of the people who guided them from birth to that moment.

They know what their child went through and sacrificed to reach that point. More importantly, their child also knows what their parents sacrificed to get them to the top.

Take Rory McIlroy’s victory at the 2011 US Open. A golfing prodigy as a child, and who had long been touted as a future world No 1, surrendered a four-stroke lead going into the final round of the US Masters, in one of the most famous final round collapses in recent memory at a golf major.

With many in the golfing world wondering if the 22-year-old would ever recover from such a heart rending meltdown, McIlroy answered emphatically just two months later by winning the US Open by a phenomenal eight strokes — to become the youngest champion since Bobby Jones in 1923 in the process.

Perhaps, the most poignant moment of his victory was the sight of his father Gerry coming onto the 18th green to embrace his son after sinking the final putt. He knew more than anybody what it had taken to ensure that his son could pursue his dream.

Golf isn’t cheap, and for four years Gerry worked 100 hours a week in three jobs, one of which included cleaning toilets and showers at a local sports club. Rory’s mother Rosie, meanwhile, worked night shifts at a factory.

As Gerry explained, it was so Rory could fulfil his potential.

“I am a working-class man. That’s all I knew to get the money we needed,” explained Gerry matter-of-factly.

And on the day of his greatest achievement, Rory was quick to acknowledge what his parents had done for him.

“Happy Father’s Day dad, this one’s for you. But I have to mention my mum as well, who’s back home watching. I can’t thank them enough,” he said.

Of course, it’s not just Rory McIlroy who has had remarkable parents that inspired and sacrificed so their children could reach the top of their chosen sport.

Who can forget Barry McGuigan’s father Pat singing Danny Boy in the ring before his son took the WBA world featherweight title from Eusebio Pedroza at Loftus Road football stadium in 1985. McGuigan always cited his father as his main inspiration as a fighter.

In the current Olympic crop, Ireland’s gold medal hope Katie Taylor’s father Peter is also her coach. She has spoken regularly of his influence on he remarkable career.

Similarly, other sports stars like Sonia O’Sullivan, Stephen Roch,e and Graeme McDowell have also looked to their dads in times of triumph and adversity.

In fact, the latter often gives us some of the greatest moments between sports stars and their parents.

Who could ever forget British athlete Derek Redmond being helped down the finishing straight during the 1992 Olympics by his father, after he tore his hamstring midway through the 400 metre semi-final?

Sport is littered with these little moments of inspiration.

It’s because of this, that one of the most notable features of Bradley Wiggins’ victory in the Tour de France was that he seemed to be driven to succeed in the sport, not because of his father, but in spite of him.

The relationship between Wiggins and his Australian father Gary was one of the more captivating stories to come out of his victory — and not for the reasons you might expect.

One quote from Wiggins perfectly summed up his attitude to his father, who walked out on him and his mother as a child. When asked what his father, who was himself a professional cyclist, would make of him winning the Tour de France, Wiggins was pretty blunt in his response.

“I don’t know really. It’s difficult to say — it depends whether he was sober... I’ve put that one to bed,” he said.

Gary, who struggled with alcohol and substance abuse, had already walked out on one family in Australia, before walking out his son, the future Olympic medallist and Tour de France winner when he was just two years old.

The two briefly met again when Bradley was a teenager. Their next, and final meeting, was when Gary got in touch after the then 20-year-old Bradley who had won a bronze medal at the Olympics in Sydney in 2000.

Gary had asked him to come to the cycling club he was involved in to enter a race there, in an effort to show his friends just how good the DNA he had passed onto his son was.

However, the race did not exactly go as planned. Exhausted by his mammoth Olympic effort, Bradley finished second in the race. His father, who had met him just twice in 20 years of his life, proceeded to berate him, accusing his son of being a failure before telling him how he would never be as good a cyclist as he himself was.

Bradley never spoke to him again, and when his father died after a beating in 2008, aged just 55 years old, Bradley decided against attending the funeral.

Instead, he devoted his life to achieving greatness in his sport for a different reason to many athletes.

Bradley may have inherited his cycling prowess from his father but he achieved his dream not to impress him, to thank him. or to emulate him. He simply achieved because he didn’t want to end up like him.

It seems that for the best of reasons or the worst of reasons, sporting immortality often does begin at home.