Cork's Mairéad Kavanagh gets Olympic judging qualification after 20 years study

A woman from Cork will be in the thick of competition at the greatest sports show on Earth next week — but she is not one of Ireland’s 77 athletes.

Mairéad Kavanagh (nee O’Callaghan) has qualified for Rio as a gymnastics judge and has had to study for more than 20 years to qualify for her first Olympic Games.

She is among only 30 ‘Grade 1’ female gymnastics judges in the world and says she achieved the highest qualification “thanks to 23 years of studying hard”.

“Every four years, after the Olympics, judges get the chance to upgrade themselves and I did the category-one exam in December 2012,” she said.

“I was really delighted to pass because I was the first Irish judge, male or female, to get it.”

She has judged numerous European and World Championships and was head judge for the women’s team at last year’s World Championships in Glasgow.

But getting selected to officiate at the Olympics is the pinnacle of her career and a massive honour for herself and her club.

“Douglas Gym Club is very community-orientated and when you get to 16 or 17 it encourages you to do your coaching and judging exams,” she explained.

“It’s a way to keep you involved in the sport when you’re no longer a gymnast. I finished competing at 20 and, straight from the outset, I loved judging.

“You start out doing exams and assessments nationally and then go through four different levels internationally. There is a lot of pressure on you to get it right at major competitions but I absolutely love it,” she added.

Judges are constantly assessed, and maintaining that standard involves lots of courses and video reviewing. Fitting in all that study is not easy for the full-time employee of Bank of Ireland who is also mum to two-year-old twin boys.

“I do most of it after the children are in bed, usually two hours a night. But my husband Joe is a fantastic support. He’s into sport too so understands what I need to do.”

Her husband Joe Kavanagh is the former Cork and Nemo Rangers star who played in two All-Ireland finals and she quipped “he’s a lot better known, which suits me”. She first got news of her Olympic appointment last December in an email from Gymnastics Ireland.

“There has been a huge drive by Gymnastics Ireland to grow the sport, which is really a foundation sport for all others,” she said.

“All the skills you learn in gymnastics can be used in other sports, even if you are just doing it for enjoyment and don’t want to compete at a high level. Nemo Rangers even brought Gymnastics Ireland in to run a session a few years ago, to learn about balance and flexibility. It is a sport that really feeds into all others.”

She is qualified to judge all of the women’s events and will not know what apparatus she is getting in Rio until a draw the day beforehand.

Ms Kavanagh is not the only one making Irish gymnastics’ history in Brazil. Kieran Behan is competing in his second Games and is now joined by teenager Ellis O’Reilly, the first Irish female gymnast to qualify for an Olympic Games.

Ms Kavanagh is now making the same history as a female judge and joins Portlaoise’s Denis Donoghue, a category-two judge who also officiated in London 2012.

Despite all her international experience, she accepts she has never before judged at a sporting event of such massive scale and variety. “When I judged the Youth Olympics in Singapore 2010 I got a taste of what it will be like because that’s basically an Olympics for U16s,” she said. “It hasn’t quite sunk in yet and I don’t think it will feel real until the opening ceremony. Then I’m sure I will feel it.”