Sydney proof that failure doesn’t have to be the end

Last week I was in an audience listening to Sonia O’Sullivan discuss her Olympic silver medal.

She won it at the Sydney Olympics, her third attempt at Olympic glory. The 2000 Olympic Games will always be one that had a profound affect on me. Most people will remember it for the moment Sonia finally won her medal, but I remember it a different way.

The Irish athletics team at the Sydney Olympics was the largest sent to any Games. I was a member of the sprint relay squad that had failed to qualify for by two-hundredths of a second. Instead of being part of the Olympic team in Sydney I was sitting on a couch in student accommodation in UCD watching on television.