Irish athletes can medal in London, says O’Sullivan

IRISH Olympic Chef de Mission Sonia O’Sullivan is convinced Ireland can secure medals at next year’s London Games.

Though keen to downplay expectations on Irish competitors, O’Sullivan is adamant the team can build on the three medal haul of our boxers in Beijing three years ago.

“We have to get a medal. If we don’t get a single medal next year then it’s unsuccessful, and there’s athletes on the team who are capable of winning medals,” she said.

“I would be the last person to name anyone [who can medal] because nobody deserves that pressure going into an Olympic Games.

“But there are athletes in there capable of winning medals and there are athletes in there capable of competing better than they have done before. That’s all you can ask, and everybody can’t win a medal but everybody can compete better than they have done before. I haven’t even thought about that [doing better than Beijing].

“It’s totally different and the world moves on, and the standards improve across the board, and it’s harder and harder every year to get a medal. But when you see an opportunity you grab it with both hands and you just go with it because you don’t know when it’s going to come around again.”

O’Sullivan, a silver medallist in the 2000 Sydney Games, is enjoying her new role off the track ahead of the London Games.

“As an athlete, you get the feedback quicker. In this job, you do stuff but won’t know the result until this time next year when it’s all over. That’s the hard thing.

“Sometimes I just think I should have decided to run the marathon in London!

“I quite enjoying running — I don’t enjoy sitting in meetings! But, now and then, there’s a bit of magic. It hammers home that this is the Olympics, this is special and I can be part of it, though not as an athlete.”

O’Sullivan also revealed that some of the country’s top athletes will gather in Down this week for a mini conference on dealing with the hype which willsurround the event.

“We will talk about things that sometimes don’t get talked about.

“Hopefully, that message will get spread out to other athletes on the team who can’t be there. The thing is to get inside the minds of some of the athletes who are worried about things they shouldn’t be worried about.”

Such as? “Pressure could be something like your parents wanting tickets. Pressure could be worrying about where your parents will stay. Pressure could be you being in the Olympic Village and your parents are out in Wimbledon and they want to see you.

“We want to know all that information because we don’t want you going across London to meet people or give them tickets. Roy Keane, in his book, talked of people looking for tickets every week and that was his biggest worry, to satisfy the need for tickets.

“When I was in the Olympics, I never got tickets for my parents. I never organised their travel, never knew where they were staying, I didn’t want to know about it. I just said ‘you have to do it yourself’.”