I don’t and won’t feel bad for loving and believing in most Olympic performances
I covered six nights of athletics action through the night with RTE. It was a real pleasure to contribute with one of my heroes, Sonia O’Sullivan and one of the genuine lovers of athletics, Jerry Kiernan.
Magical moments
I really can’t see past Thomas Barr in terms of my Irish athletics highlight. His time of 47.97 is stunningly good. If he had achieved that in any of the last three Olympic Games he would have either a bronze or a silver medal. It is incredible. So many people have spoken to me about Thomas this week and they have had to listen to me detailing just why his performance was so, so, so good.
The O’Donovan brothers from West Cork first came on my radar last year when they qualified for the Olympic Games. I spend some time in West Cork and I had heard the stories of their relentless pursuit of medals and their world-class coach, DominicCasey.
To have two boats in Olympic rowing finals within a few minutes of each other was incredible. Sinead Lynch and Claire Lambe put in an incredible effort to finish 6th in the world. Their post-race interview actually made me cry. They summed up all that can be great about sport in their attitude and class.
Annalise Murphy did what very few people ever do, she went back to the Olympics and turned a fourth into silver. Her medal is the result of a constant pursuit of it over the pastseven years. She had many dark days before she could get herself onto a podium and her effort was inspiring.
Healing the hurt
I competed at three Olympic games and each of them hurt. I never got the Olympic happy ending that I worked for and believed in. Even now I look back and find those experiences a little painful. But they all taught me some valuable lessons.
The Irish boxing team had a turbulent time in Rio. To watch Michael Conlan’s raw emotions straight after his ‘loss’ was tough viewing. I was torn, part of me felt that someone should have stepped in and pulled him away from the camera. Yet the other part of me felt that people needed to hear what he was saying.
To see the exposed, unfiltered hurt of how the judging had affected his result made people sit up and take notice. I really, really hope his words will have some positive effect on amateur boxing judging. I won’t hold my breath though.
I feel strongly there is a duty of care to athletes post-Olympic games. It isn’t enough just to give a person some funding to support them to get to a Games, it’s just as important to support the athletes in the months after the flame goes out. From the start of my Olympic journey in 2004 to the end of it in 2012 there was definitely some progress made in this area. I hope there is more progress for this post-Olympic period.
The unsung heroes
Most Olympic sports are individual pursuits but they would not be possible without a team of people who go above and beyond to support the athletes. In week one of the Olympics a picture emerged of Sarah Jane McDonnell comforting Sanita Purspure when she didn’t advance in the rowing.
The picture summed up the background help that is rarely seen. Sarah Jane is a physiotherapist working for the Irish Institute of Sport. She and many like her go above and beyond their job description to support athletes. You will rarely see the people like her on the big days because they don’t do it for any sort of public credit.
A large amount of people who are crucial to the athletes performance are volunteers. It’s important to realise this when watching performances. They stand in the rain and give up their time for the sheer joy of an Olympic journey.
Whilst Irish Olympic sport has definitely become more professional since I started in 2004 there is still a gap in coaching. My hope for the next four years towards Rio is a very athlete and coach based support programme.
Searching for integrity
As an athlete I strove for a certain level of integrity. I believe in right and wrong but I also feel there can be grey areas. The issue of doping and cheating in sport has been to the forefront in many discussions. The Twitter police have been out in force during this Olympic Games to point fingers. There is legitimacy in a lot of what is said but at the same time there has to be some level of balance.
I feel some people have one narrative and if you don’t agree with their continuous finger-pointing, you are somehow part of the problem. I just can’t get up on that Twitter high horse.
I’ve always been outspoken on cheaters, (long before it was cool to do it and when many athletes said little to nothing) I’ve been personally affected by drug cheats yet I believe the vast majority of athletes are clean. I don’t and won’t feel bad for loving most of the Olympic Games and believing in the vast majority of performances.
The ugly issues
The story of Pat Hickey’s arrest has been a massive part of the Games. My hope is that there is a full investigation and we will have to wait and see the result of that. In my experience there were people in administrative roles extremely detached from the reality of high performance sport and I worked quite a lot outside the system because of this. I found it utterly frustrating at times.
Yet I think it’s important to point out there are some people working in sports admin who do a fanstastic job. Just like the drug issue, you simply cannot paint everyone with the same brush.
