Sarah Keane’s appointment just the first step for OCI

It was shortly before 10pm on Thursday evening in Dublin’s Conrad Hotel when Sarah Keane was formally ratified as the new president of the Olympic Council of Ireland and any little remaining interest among the general public in the organisation’s internal politicking dissipated into the cold, dark night.

But the story didn’t end there.

Another two hours or so of election work still stretched ahead and, by the end of it, the sense of an old guard being routed had only been heightened given the fact two-thirds of the officers elected were first-time appointees.