Sporting bodies split over Beijing Review
The review will be presented to the government as soon as it is completed but a spokesman for the OCI said yesterday that they won’t be involved and will carry out their own review.
Finbarr Kirwan, Performance Manager with the ISC, said they will be disappointed if the OCI don’t participate: “We have spent €34 million on the Olympic and Paralympic programmes over the past four years and we’d like to think we’ve got a very good return from the investment.”
He added that the OCI itself got €2m over the cycle.
“The Review will be very important if we are to build on the successful results from the Beijing Olympics because we are very definitely moving in the right direction,” he said. “And it has to be recognised that it is because of the Athens Review that we got those results.
“The money spent was government money and the government is entitled to know what return they got from the expenditure.
“It would be unreasonable not to have a review. We are working with the governing bodies and the relationships are good, they are happy to co-operate. We have spoken to the team managers so the process has been kicked off.”
Jack McGouran, spokesman for the OCI, said they will be doing their own review.
“The Olympic Council has a process whereby team members can log into a special website, using a code, and answer a number of questions. The results of the questionnaire will then be handed over to a Market Research company. This is how other European Olympic committees do it,” he said.
He pointed out that the OCI did not sign off on the Athens Review because they had certain issues with it.
“A lot of comments from the OCI were not taken on board. We are doing it from a different perspective and we are certain that the results will be very positive because this was the best organised Olympic team ever and it was also a very successful Olympic team.”
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
