Athletes ‘met all’ Beijing targets

THE targets set post-Athens were realised and, in some cases, exceeded according to the Irish Sports Council’s review of the preparation of athletes and their subsequent performances in the Beijing Olympics.

In the four year cycle leading up to the 2008 Games almost €32 million was invested in the Olympic team and the Beijing Review which was published yesterday said the Irish Sports Council got good value for money with the third best ever medal haul behind Melbourne 1956 and Atlanta 1996 where Michelle Smith won four gold medals.

But there was a warning from the independent consultant, Dr Neil Tunnicliffe of Wharton Consulting, who was employed to assist in preparing the review, that the current level of funding must be maintained if the same level of success is to be achieved in London.

“It’s a pretty simple equation where investment equals outcomes and I think if investment is withdrawn or cut in any kind of way then one would have to expect that performance outcomes would fall,” he said.

“The importance of maintaining and enhancing the progress that’s been made to date very much depends on the continuation of significant investment from Government in the Irish Sports Council and from the Sports Council out to individual sports.”

John Treacy, Chief Executive of the Irish Sports Council, agreed pointing out that he felt the progress of the past four years could be maintained on the current level of funding.

“We would hope our investment in High Performance for the year will be maintained at last year’s level — it’s a critical strategy of ours and we’ll continue to focus on that,” he said.

“The level of investment we have right now will be sufficient to get us to 2012. The Sports Council has two priorities — participation and high performance — and clearly the Council would have as a priority that we continue to invest in the high performance side particularly with the Olympic Games so close to home.”

Last October the Irish Sports Council established a Steering Group to direct its quadrennial high performance review, known as the Beijing Review. This group was chaired by Judge Rory MacCabe, SC, and comprised Mr Pat O’Neill and Mr Gary Owens assisted by Dr Neil Tunnicliffe who did a full review of UK Sport’s investment in Paralympic Sport and has worked across over 30 different governing bodies of sport over the last eight years.

The Olympic Council of Ireland did not participate in the review because they felt that their opinions were not properly reflected in the Sydney and Athens reviews and they are currently doing their own review in association with Genesis, the international sports consultancy group, which will be published at the end of the month.

In the course of the ISC’s Review Dr Tunnicliffe interviewed representatives of all Olympic and Paralympic sports, relevant agencies (except the OCI which declined an invitation to participate) and received responses to a questionnaire from 28 (of 55) Olympic athletes and 72 of 79 Paralympic athletes. Only eight athletes were interviewed but he was not concerned about this.

“Certainly we had to interpret the results of the athlete questionnaire more carefully than we would have done if we’d had a full response,” he said.

“It is balanced up by athlete interviews we did over and above the athlete questionnaire and also the fact that we consulted very widely; not only around the Olympic team of sports but also around the Governing bodies as well so I think we’ve got a pretty three-dimensional view of what’s happened over the last four years.”

John Treacy said that, in the lead up to London 2012, they will target sports that they feel can deliver and will continue to invest in them. They will also target individual athletes who will deliver.

“We met all the targets we set after Athens,” he said. “Now we must make sure that we have more quality people who are capable of producing more quality results rather than concentrating on bigger numbers.”