€1.5m funding for Olympics feels ‘like winning the Lotto’
Ireland women’s hockey team member Yvonne O’Byrne felt it was “like winning the Lotto” when Sports Minister Shane Ross announced there would be an extra €1.5m for teams preparing for the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020.
“On behalf of the Government, I want to say thank you very, very much. It is a very rare occasion to have such undiluted good news and you are bringing that home with you today,” said Mr Ross when he greeted the team members at Dublin Airport.
“The big winners [on Sunday] for me were not really the Netherlands — the big winners were you,” he told the returning Irish team.
Because the Netherlands were expected to win and they were first in the world. You guys came from nowhere and you came second and what’s more, you did it with such joy and pleasure.
Mr Ross said people have asked how the Government was going to respond to their stellar performance at the Hockey World Cup in London.
Team members laughed and some said: “Money, lots of money!”
Some gasped in surprise when Mr Ross announced that he had decided to provide an extra €1.5m for “Olympic and world champion preparation and hockey would enjoy a significant share of that”.
He did not say how much money would be provided for hockey. The decision had just been made in response to the team’s performance but he was going to try and get the money to them this year.
Yvonne, from Cork, was in tears after the minister’s announcement.
It feels as if we have just won the Lotto. Putting €1.5m into an Olympic fund is just going to completely change our sport,” she said.
“We came home with a silver medal. We went out just hoping to make it to the quarter-final,” said Yvonne, 26, who is a member of Cork Harlequins and plays in defence.
Yvonne said the team went out every single day of the tournament determined to enjoy every moment, but then they started surpassing everyone’s expectations — including their own.
“We were just excited to be involved and so happy to be there,” she said.
“We started getting all these texts and tweets from people we would consider to be famous. We just never ever in our wildest dreams could have anticipated this. It was never our intention to win a medal.”
However, the team knew for the last few years that they could compete with
almost anyone in the world. They had played against teams in the competition
before and had beaten them.
“We took a lot of confidence from that so although people on the outside might think that we did not have a shot, we believed we could take on anyone.”
Yvonne said they had 12 months to get ready to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics next summer.
When she is not playing hockey, Yvonne is in Cork Institute of Technology where she is doing a PhD in Project Spraoi, a primary school physical activity and healthy eating intervention.
“Our club season starts at the end of September. We train all year round; this is full time for us.
“You don’t go on a night out with your friends; you don’t have normal jobs. A lot of us try to further our education to allow us that extra time to put into our sport,” said Yvonne.
Róisín Upton, from Raheen, Co Limerick, 24, who plays in defence and midfield and is also a member of Cork Harlequins, said she felt “over the moon” when they arrived home after the World Cup.
“We knew there would be a big reaction at home but we have been living in a bubble for the last three weeks. I don’t think any of us anticipated this,” she said.
The preparation was no different to how we always get ready for a big event.
"We got together eight weeks before the World Cup started.”
Assistant coach and technical coach Colin Stewart said the team’s performance was phenomenal. “They worked really hard. They are professional in everything they do. We certainly had realistic hopes. We knew we could take points off the US and India. But we just went in to enjoy ourselves and I think that is the key,” he said.
