Second best not enough for Irish Paralympians

After the multiple disappointments for Irish representative teams in Poland and New Zealand in recent weeks, the nation’s attention is about to turn towards London and the hope ofbetter things to come.

Once again, Ireland will look to the ring for most of its Olympic medal prospects but hope has given way to expectation for the 49-strong Paralympics team unveiled yesterday, which will follow their colleagues to the English capital just over two weeks later.

The team, drawn from 10 sports and 20 counties, is Ireland’s biggest for the Paralympics since the 1996 Games in Atlanta and contains reigning world champions in athletics and cycling and two defending Paralympic champions in Jason Smyth and Michael McKillop.

“From an organisational perspective, our target as stated in 2009 is five medals, three of them gold,” said Paralympic performance director Nancy Chillingworth. “This would match the performance of the team in Beijing and it is a pretty high target. However, this is a really ambitious movement.

“We are going to London confident that, all going well, we will achieve that target and not only that but we believe that we will exceed it. There are eight events on the London programme where the reigning world champion is Irish.

“Be in absolutely no doubt, this Irish team is going to London to compete and to succeed. Our goal is to be the most successful Irish sports team of 2012. However, there is the chance that this could be the most successful Irish sporting team of all time.”

The burgeoning success of the Irish Paralympic movement has been highlighted again by the presence of equestrian, shooting and rowing, sports which are providing competitors for the first time, as well as powerlifting, represented for the first time since 1960.

Most revealing of all is cycling’s upward graph. Though still without a Paralympic medal, the Irish had never claimed a single podium place in any major championship until 2009, since when it has claimed 13, including five gold.

The quest for success hardly stalled yesterday despite a two-hour ceremony in the RDS to unveil the Paralympic team as the afternoon signalled a shift back into work mode and a trip up the east coast to Antrim for the first Paralympic multi-sport training camp.

Another has been organised for Limerick next month after which the team will depart for a pre-Games holding camp in Portugal. From there it will be on to London on August 24 in time for the opening ceremony five days later.

Twenty-four of the athletes will be experiencing their first Games while sailor John Twomey from Ballinhassig, will be competing in his 10th straight Paralympics. His first was in Toronto in 1976.