Olympic Council attacks RTÉ ‘soapbox pundits’

THE Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) has launched a blistering attack on RTÉ over aspects of their Games coverage in August.

The OCI media officer Jack McGouran expressed concern at a late night production and criticised station bosses for allowing "soapbox pundits make negative, egotistical, bizarre, out of touch and out of order comments."

He added that many athletes had been upset by the coverage.

"One big disappointment for Team Ireland was the late night television coverage of the events of the day on RTÉ," he told PERFORM, the OCI official magazine.

"Broadcasting from Donnybrook, the station employed several so-called experts on sport to summarise each day's events.

"The Irish athletes felt that RTÉ did not show any sense of balance on this programme and continually allowed a couple of these puffed-up soapbox pundits make negative egotistical, bizarre, out of touch and out of order comments.

"A strong protest was made to RTÉ but to no avail."

He added, "All in all, the media coverage provided from Athens by the Irish journalists was generally fair and positive."

RTÉ expressed disappointment following the statement.

"We did receive one call from the manager of the Irish team," a spokesman said yesterday.

"And he was concerned with the comments made about one particular athlete."

He added: "The athlete was then given a full right of reply on the night time programme.

"So naturally we are disappointed to hear comments such as this coming four months after the event.

"We will be writing to the Olympic Council to discover their exact complaint," the spokesman said.

During the August Games an angry war of words broke out between 1500m runner James Nolan and RTÉ panellist, former Irish Olympian Jerry Kiernan.

After Nolan failed to qualify for the finals of the men's 1500 metres, he lambasted Kiernan, who had questioned his training methods.

Following the race he told RTÉ's Ryle Nugent, "I train over 700 times a year and spend the rest of the day trying to sort out injuries ... but he (Jerry Kiernan) is obviously a higher power on these things. I can't see how a marathon runner slash cross country slogger can comment on these things. It would be like a bad judo coach commenting on Andy Lee's boxing match."

He finished his comments by addressing the camera and saying, "Jerry, you're a fool."

Kiernan responded by listing his athletics credentials and telling host Bill O'Herlihy, "I wasn't being cruel or even being gratuitously harsh."

He also reminded viewers that he had told Nolan of his opinion of his training methods: "I met James a few weeks ago in Belfield and spoke to him. I stand over everything I said and I would retract absolutely nothing."

Meanwhile, OCI President Pat Hickey has again expressed confidence Ireland can achieve success in Beijing in 2008 and in future games provided the proper funding and resources are in place.

"They need consistent support to deliver the Olympic champions of the future," he said.

"Working with the Irish Sports Council and benefiting from the excellent contributions of Minister John O'Donoghue, we continue to build on the foundation of a programme that commenced after Sydney and which will deliver long term success for Irish athletes."

But he sounded a word of warning for an impatient public who were critical of Irish performances in Athens.

"It is a marathon not a sprint," Mr Hickey stressed.