Cathal Dennehy: Is Irish funding about driving future success or rewarding performances?

If funding is about driving future success, and less about rewarding performances, then why not divert more towards those on the way up with the requisite talent?

FUNDING: Ireland’s Chris O’Donnell, Rhasidat Adeleke, Tom Barr and Sharlene Mawdsley celebrate with their gold medals Pic: ©INPHO/Morgan Treacy

There’s a famous quote attributed to legendary distance-runner Emil Zatopek: “An athlete cannot run with money in his pockets. He must run with hope in his heart and dreams in his head.” The Czech athlete was certainly true to that, his achievements – 18 world records, four Olympic gold medals – all occurring in the amateur era, Zatopek running not for financial reward but for love of country and the thrill of seeing how great he could be. In 1996, four years before his death, Zatopek was asked about the modern Olympic landscape and said the amateur approach was long gone, adding: “Everything depends on sponsorship.” 

Almost 30 years later, that’s even more the case, the relationship between funding and medals being a clear, causative one. There are many reasons Ireland enjoyed its most successful Olympics in Paris but the biggest is that the government now invests significantly more than it used to, providing €25 million for high-performance sport last year, two and a half times what it gave in 2016, when Ireland won just two Olympic medals in Rio.