Time and money on the mind as Paralympians target Tokyo Games

The postponement of the Tokyo Games has added an estimated half-a-million euro onto the budget

Wed, 03 Mar, 2021 - 07:00

Brendan O'Brien

Desperate times and all that. Paralympics Ireland has been a proactive organisation for a long time now but ‘The Next Level’ campaign launched this week is a new departure for the body as it counts the costs of the pandemic and rising competition globally.

The postponement of the Tokyo Games has added an estimated half-a-million euro onto the budget and nations across the world are pumping more and more money into Para sport which has resulted in the movement here to ask the public to dip into its pockets.

"To go to a Paralympics or international competition, you’d have two or three people in a bedroom,” the swimmer Nicole Turner explained. “Now with social distancing, you can’t do that anymore. It is going to cost over €500,000 to send the Irish Paralympic team to Tokyo.”

The campaign was launched last Friday night when a number of officials and athletes appeared on the Late Late Show, among them Ellen Keane who spoke again about the importance of language and the need to separate ‘Olympian’ from ‘Paralympian’.

Keane has also aired her unhappiness with how reporting about the Tokyo Games has always fixated on the Olympic aspect and all too often ignored the Paralympic side and this latest campaign is also calling got equality of esteem, respect and admiration for para-athletes.

“The more people know about the sport the more they recognise it, the more they appreciate it,” said Greta Streimikyte, the 1,500m runner.

It is more about knowledge. Every four years Paralympic sport is getting bigger and bigger, there is a lot of media about it, but then it goes silent after the Games.

“So we need the conversation to continue and spread the message. I had to learn about Paralympic sport and not even about my event but others as well and I am amazed at what people can do. It takes time but I think we are going to get there eventually.”

Patience has been in high demand the last 12 months with Turner and Streimikyte among the many thousands of Tokyo hopefuls forced to press pause for Games put back 12 months by the pandemic and the resultant lockdowns

Turner had taken a year out of school to concentrate on the 2020 Games and has now done so again. Fifth and sixth year await if, and hopefully, when Tokyo is finally in the rear-view mirror and it took time to get her head around that.

“Moreso last year than this year. This year I’m thinking of the Paralympics, but it did hit me last year when the Games were postponed. It was, ‘Oh, I could have done another year in school.’ But it opened a lot of doors for me.

“I got a lot of support from Sport Ireland and the Institute around education because I wasn’t in school. It opened a lot of doors because I had a lot of free time to do other things. I’m just thinking ahead to Tokyo as I don’t want any regrets.”

Turner, like many Olympic and Paralympic athletes, believes she has improved in certain department for the lockdowns and the extended periods of training but the appetite for competition is a universal truth.

Streimikyte competed in the behind-closed-doors nationals last year and in the recent micro meet at the National Indoor Arena but the three-woman field and the lack of competition and all the bells and whistles of what used to be normal meets didn’t sit well.

It could be close to the summer before that absence can be filled.

“At the end of the day, we train to race and I miss racing now,” said the 2018 European champion.

But you adapt and you replace it with more time to train. So it’s just finding the best possible way to go around these things.