Crediting the GAA doesn’t take away from other sports
Sometimes I try to sail, which I’m totally useless at. We’re both Olympians with different strengths and achievements in our chosen sports and being useless at each other’s sport doesn’t detract from our own sporting ability.
That’s the thing about various sports, they require all kinds of talents, so why waste our energy comparing them? When I hear an athletics versus GAA debate, I start to cringe.
Recently, Jerry Kiernan, former Olympic marathon runner, made negative comments about the GAA receiving a grant of €600,000 to upgrade a facility in London. Kiernan has a habit of wading into GAA discussions with his athletics flag flying high. He has questioned the players’ fitness, their right to taxpayers’ money and the general popularity of the sport in Ireland.
Sonia O’Sullivan was in town this week and when questioned, she expressed her view that in athletics people are killing themselves training and getting very little acknowledgement or funding for it.
There are two elements in sport that bring out extreme opinions in people. The first is money, always a contentious issue. Also it’s usually taxpayers’ money being spent, which makes people feel like they have even more of a right to complain. There is always grumbling when government funding is announced.
I’ve a pact with myself not tocompare my funding with that of other athletes in other sports. I think its counter-productive, petty and a little mean in my opinion. It never leads to anything good.
The notion of sportspeople being given appropriate credit for their achievements is the other area I think rankles with people. For me to get a lot of coverage for my running, I need to win a medal, the difference between fourth and top three ismassive in the consciousness of the general population.
The popularity of athletics hinges largely on winning medals butwinning medals on a world stage in a sport that has arguably one of the highest rates of participation of any sport globally is a tough ask.
Year in year out, there are Irish athletes putting in amazing performances but other than athletics fans few people will notice.
They stroll down the street of their local town and few people will have a clue about their achievements but a lot of those people will know the results of the club GAA matches from the previous weekend.
This isn’t the fault of the GAA or of any of the players who take to the pitch each week. They are doing a great job at what they do.
Little kids in every town want to emulate them, playing for their club or county and winning trophies. I think that’s positive, getting people interested in sport, any sport, is a great thing.
In 2006, Henry Shefflin won the RTÉ Sports Personality of the Year ahead of me, I was a world champion and a European medallist that year. Yes, it stung a little, but I didn’t resent Shefflin, I think he is one of the most successful Irish sportspeopleever. I also think comparing what we do is futile. I had anawesome year at what I do, he had an awesome year at what he does. It’s as simple as that.
In 2010, I won a European medal and a week later competed as part of a Munster relay team in Croke Park during the All-Ireland semi-final. The race in Croker gave me a tiny taste of what it must be like to play there in front of a capacity crowd trying to win an All-Ireland. It must be epic. The atmosphere in Croker felt similar to the one in London for the Olympics.
Unless you are winning medals on a regular basis as an Irish track athlete, you’re never going to get the same level of attention and adulation as a GAA star. While Kiernan attacks this fact with the blunt force of a hammer, Sonia O’Sullivan was a little more measured.
Of course it can be frustrating to be an athlete but I chose to be in this sport and was well aware that it’s a global sport with an extremely high standard. Success in athletics andsuccess in GAA are measured differently and that’s fine by me. TheGAA is not to blame for the lack of recognition athletes receive — is recognition really all that important? As an athlete I think your focus must be on performing for yourself, pats on the back are all well and good but they are not that important to me.
Sport should be making our society a healthier place and that means any sport that reaches people and encourages them to participate is a success. Imagine the effect on communities all over Ireland without the GAA?
Crediting the GAA for what it does as a sport for this country isn’t something that takes away from other sports. I chatted to Rob Heffernan, 50km walk world champion, about this and he praised the brilliant support system the GAA provides.
Take, for example, the great work of the GPA in protecting the players. Athletes would love that set-up. As a father, Heffernan sees the brilliant work the GAA does with kids and admires it. He’s an athletics man with a background in GAA and an appreciation of both sports.
GAA isn’t my sport, it never has been, but I can stand back andapplaud what it does. Sport is about the masses and GAA does that, itappeals and works for the masses.
Complaining about that is just cringeworthy.
