Lack of funding ‘harsh reality’ for athletes

Two-time Olympic race-walker Colin Griffin believes a lack of, or inappropriate use of funding from the Irish Sports Council and Athletics Ireland, subsequently, is a contributory factor in athletes deciding to retire prematurely.

Griffin was himself controversially denied funding this year, but an appeal has seen him get “something” that “is not ideal.” And despite having qualified for the World Championships later this year in Moscow, he cited the case of recently retired Thomas Chamney as an example of an athlete being forced into early retirement because of a lack of funds.

“No one is going to make a living out of the sport unless you’re winning medals and not many Irish athletes are in that situation,” admitted the Leitrim man. “You can only fund yourself for so long without getting anything in return and when you’ve a bad season with injury or illness you can find yourself being dropped from funding and not having what you need and it’s a difficult one.

“You’re in a catch-22 situation,” he continued. “It’s a vicious circle and there’s only so many years you can do that without getting something back out of it. In most European countries it’s just a professional job being an athlete; once you get the results, but when you’re in Ireland it’s almost like a hobby. We don’t have the security to earn a living from the sport. You’re trying to invest what you can into it and when you don’t get anything back or what you want out of it over a period of time it can be difficult to justify keeping it going so that would have been something that frustrated Thomas.”

On his own battle to secure funding, he said: “Something got sorted in the end, not ideal but it’s better than nothing.

“I was expecting it (to be rejected for funding) but not expecting the decision to be made without any avenue to appeal it so that was what I was fighting for for a few months. Eventually I got a chance to make my case before an independent panel and then they submitted a recommendation. It would have been easier if that was done four or five months ago, it took longer than it should have. It’s not ideal. I wouldn’t have the same benefits of being fully carded but I have enough for the season to do what I need to do and we’ll take it from there.”

He said the continual struggle for money is just the “harsh reality” for an Irish athlete.

“I would have had a few sponsors before the Olympics last year but that would have come to a natural end so I would have had a huge hole in my budget this year and it’s very hard to replace that and being self employed too, I’m more or less funding my own training programme. It’s an extra stress in itself but that’s just the harsh reality.”