Derval O'Rourke: I was asked right after an event at one Olympics ‘how bad was that?’

TOP OF HER GAME: Derval O’Rourke in the Women’s 100m Hurdles heat at the 2012 London Olympic Games. She revealed that facing media directly after such races was extremely challenging. Picture: Stu Forster/Getty Images
The rumbling, rolling sports controversy of the week? Easy.
Tennis star Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open tournament last Monday. The previous week she had stated she wouldn’t be speaking to the press at the tournament, citing concerns about her mental health. Cue the reaction: a flood of opinion and comment pieces.
And a spectacularly misjudged response from the tennis authorities. Between misjudged tweets and shambolic press conferences of their own, not to mention a threat to throw Osaka out of the French tournament for . . . not going to press conferences.
In a broader context, however, Osaka’s stand has pushed athletes, journalists and officials to examine the basis for their interactions, the issue of mental health in sport, and much more.
Including the much-maligned press conference.
“The funny thing is I find a lot of press conferences interesting,” says Derval O’Rourke.
“It’s not as though we need to tear up the rulebook on them, but I’d look at the people at these press conferences and look at the line of questioning from them, and the difference in life experience between someone like Naomi Osaka and the journalists sitting in front of her. It’s apples and oranges.
“For instance, it would be great if the journalists covering the Olympics this summer were aware of what happened in this case and took a step back at the mixed zones there - if they took a moment to be mindful.
“That’s all you want. I remember being at one Olympic Games and getting asked right after an event, ‘How bad was that?’ One of the first questions.”
O’Rourke offers a double perspective.
She competed in the 2004, 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games - but is also involved in media herself now, with the Irish Examiner and RTÉ, where she’ll cover this year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo.
We all have a natural bias, and of the two of us here, you’d have a bias as a journalist and I’d have a bias as an athlete.
“I’ve thought about this a lot - I love women’s tennis and follow it closely, and I’d be familiar with Naomi Osaka. Some of her campaigning for Black Lives Matter has been very impressive for such a young person.
“Most athletes appear to be supportive of her. And I’d be supportive of her. You have to take care of your mental health.
“I don’t think you can argue with her pulling out because clearly she’s suffered, but what she’s raised is a bigger issue - of welfare, of duty of care - and I think things shouldn’t be as they always were. She’s challenging the status quo, which means change, and people are often uncomfortable with change.”
One area O’Rourke sees as ripe for reform is post-event questioning.
Retired from competition seven years, when she was still competing that was an aspect of major championships she felt she had to plan for.
“I realised that when I was pretty young.
“I came off the track at the Athens Olympics having run pretty badly - I’d been sick, there were a hundred reasons why I’d run badly - and I found the questioning right then, 60 seconds after that Olympic dream falling apart, really difficult to take.
“I learned from that and put more of a structure around how I handled myself in post-race interviews afterward.
“If I was working with a young athlete going to an international championship - going through the mixed zone, all of that - then part of my prep would be on post-race.
I don’t think we consider that, the vulnerability which can exist there, and for some athletes, it weighs heavily.
The situation isn’t improved when officials take the wrong approach, of course. The French organisers’ reaction in recent days is a case in point.
“The welfare question Naomi Osaka has raised - do I think Roland Garros responded correctly? No, I don’t.
“I saw the email she wrote to them which was shared later - was that wrong? They also put out a tweet which was later deleted, saying ‘They understood the assignment’ (featuring other players).”
O’Rourke returns to the formal press conference, which has come in for some piercing criticism this week.
“I’d love to know if there’s a code of conduct for journalists and a code of conduct for athletes there, because it’s a two-way street.
“To this day I still don’t know what was expected of me as an athlete there - how many questions I was expected to answer, how long I was supposed to be there, was every topic on the table?
“As far as I could tell, everything was on the table.
“Also, you rarely see the questions which were asked (when the story is published), so you don’t always get the full story. You never see the press conference reported, or published, in question and answer format, so you’re missing some of the context.
I ended up giving the answers I wanted no matter what questions I was asked, but I felt that that was my right because the questions themselves were never published.
Even the filming of a press conference gives an imbalanced view: usually the camera shows one person, the athlete, and not the rows of questioners he or she faces. Yet one of the crudest equations deployed against Osaka is that someone with the capacity to perform in elite sport in front of thousands of spectators should be able to field light questioning afterwards.
“One doesn’t negate the other,” says O’Rourke, who has been announced as event ambassador for Grant Thornton’s virtual GT5K.
“I think people - some people - want to put it in a box and put a bow on it so it’s nice and neat. But sometimes it’s not nice and neat.
“Naomi Osaka has mentioned having that social anxiety and I think a lot of people can identify with that.
“I certainly can - I’d often say to my friends that I can feel like an introverted extrovert. I’ve been public-facing, put it that way, for a long time, and there are often times when I don’t want to be, and I do things to protect myself then. And I’d have what, one half of one per cent of Naomi Osaka’s profile?
“She’s also very young. At my age, now, I realise there are times when I need to be off, not dealing with too many people, which is something that might surprise some people about me because in general I’m very chatty.
“But I’ve learned that I have to protect my energy.

“There are times when I’ve lots of energy, but there are also times when I need to go quiet for a while. I’m working with RTÉ on the Olympic coverage in July, which is something I’ll need a lot of energy for.
“For three weeks prior to that I won’t do any events, I probably won’t talk to anyone in the media, I might do a little on social media because I can control that - but then I’ll have that energy to be front-facing and to articulate my thoughts.
“Now have a look at the women’s tennis tour. It’s on the go for 46 weeks a year. How many press conferences is that for someone like Naomi Osaka?
How many opportunities is that to say the wrong thing at the wrong moment, to be made feel uncomfortable? To be anxious about?
O’Rourke doesn’t have to reach too far back into the past for an example of how that anxiety can start to gnaw.
“I don’t read anything written about me, ever. I don’t watch anything I’m on or listen to anything I’ve done. I find it extremely uncomfortable, and I’m years at it.
“I think we confuse a person’s capability when it comes to performing in one aspect of their job as the capacity to perform in another aspect of their job.
“Some sportspeople are really good at all aspects of the job, including media, but from those I’ve met over the years, and I’ve met a lot, I don’t know any of them it comes easily to - even the ones who are good at it.
“It requires a certain type of energy, a certain amount of having your guard up, not trying to say anything with ramifications... that’s hard for me, because I’m opinionated.
“A couple of weeks ago I spoke out about funding for athletes and for the 24 hours immediately afterwards I was really anxious that what I’d said would be taken up the wrong way.”
And now, when the boot is on the other foot and she’s wearing the journalist’s hat?
“I used to interview the athletes for RTÉ but I prefer doing the panel stuff, to be honest.
“I remember having the voice in my head when I was interviewing athletes - ‘let them say something interesting’. No one wants a bland interview.
“But the other side of me, the athlete side, was hoping they wouldn’t say anything that would have a negative impact on them afterwards.
“Particularly in an Olympic sport: it’s not like they’re earning millions and millions of euro.
“I see David Gillick do trackside interviews now and I think it’s great, because I know he has empathy with athletes, he’s had that experience himself.
I don’t think that experience is absolutely necessary, but it has to help. I see the athletes respond to him when he talks to them, there’s a softness to their faces when they answer.
It’s needed. Athletes are particularly sensitive, she says.
“It’s not like a normal job. I’ve heard people say, ‘well, if I don’t do my job then I don’t expect to get paid’, but they don’t understand what the job is. People don’t walk out of an office and get doorstepped about their performance during the working day.
“Now, I didn’t understand the media side before getting into the media myself. In 12 years as an athlete I had one day’s media training, which I believe the Olympic Council of Ireland put on.
“And the media landscape’s changed, too. Anyone who thinks an athlete has to engage with traditional media to be a superstar is deluded because an athlete can use social media to connect with people.
“But really good journalists tell incredible stories. I’d prefer to read a really good interview by a journalist who’s sat down for coffee with an athlete than read a prepared statement from an athlete that may have gone through a PR company first.
“Cathal Dennehy, for instance, has done some fantastic stuff for the Examiner, he’s shared stories in the last 12 to 18 months which have been eye-opening and inspiring and thought-provoking.
“Without those storytellers we’d lose a lot - people can say ‘oh, athletes can talk directly to their fans’ but I don’t think that’s right either.”
Room for both? You’d like to think so.
- Derval O’Rourke is the Grant Thornton 5K virtual race ambassador. The 2021 GT5K, usually run in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Belfast, will take place virtually for the second year, allowing for runners from all over the country to take part on the 8 th September. To enter the race register at www.grantthornton.ie/gt5k. Individuals or teams can register, and teams can compete in one of the three categories: male, female, or mixed. The entry fee per person is €10 + booking fee or €40 + booking fee per team.
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