John Treacy: We'd have taken the hand off you for four medals before the Olympics

We came away from Tokyo with about 20 top-10 positions. We had targeted 10 to 15. There were personal bests, national records, and finals’ qualifications

Sport Ireland CEO John Treacy. Picture: INPHO/Morgan Treacy

As CEO of Sport Ireland, I would be very pleased with the overall performance of Team Ireland at the Tokyo Olympics.

We would have taken the hand off you if you’d offered us four medals before the Games and two of them were gold. That’s the first time since 1932 that we have two gold medals by different people, which is fantastic.

Those performances by Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy, and Kellie Harrington were superb.

As someone who has been involved in sport all his life and been leading Sport Ireland for many years now, it was great to sit down with the confidence that they were going to do it. You never doubted them.

That is unusual because to deliver a performance on the world stage at the Olympic Games for an Olympic medal is exceptionally hard. Even for the great Sonia O’Sullivan, it was her third Olympic Games before she delivered. Some of us, myself included, fell flat on our faces on our first visit, and that was without having to deal with the type of challenges these athletes did due to Covid-19.

Also, I would always say, don’t put medals around anyone’s neck before their event, but with Fintan and Paul, and Kellie too, there was a calmness about them. You knew they were flying. And they are fantastic ambassadors too. And how they present themselves on television is how they are in reality. They are an inspiration to us all and their performances deserved gold medals.

The other medals, for Aifric Keogh, Eimear Lambe, Fiona Murtagh, and Emily Hegarty in the women’s four in rowing, and for Aidan Walsh in boxing, were unexpected but very well deserved.

Personally, my heart went out to Sanita Puspure. I was really upset for her because I know the work she put in. She’s a terrific athlete and leader, the type of person you’d look up for and she’s done so much for rowing and female rowers in Ireland through a fabulous career.

I felt so sorry too for Kurt Walker in his quarter-final. If I was the judge, I would have given it to him. I might be a bit biased but I thought he’d won the fight. He boxed exceptionally well.

It was an unlucky Games for us despite our excellent return. Rhys McCleneghan went in there with a great shot but who would have said a few years ago that we would have a gymnast fighting with the best in the world? Like many, he is training in the best facilities, the best coaches, and with access to the best services at the Sport Ireland campus.

Rory McIlroy was one rotation of a ball away from winning a medal and when he said that he never fought so hard for third place in his life it summed up the Olympic Games. These medals are so hard to come by.

Stephanie Meadow and Leonie Maguire (golf) performed exceptionally well. Natalya Coyle was in a great position in modern pentathlon in fourth and just got a horse she had no control of. Mona McSharry was a finalist in swimming who has her best years ahead of her and the mixed relay team reaching the final of the 4x400m was magnificent too. Meanwhile, the qualification of the Men’s Sevens team in rugby and the women’s hockey team was particularly noteworthy.

Looking to the future we have cause for a lot of optimism. Jack Woolley is an example of our support of athletes from sports Ireland doesn’t have a tradition for, in his case taekwondo, in terms of services and expertise, to ensure he has all he needs to maximise his potential. Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove are great prospects in the 49er class and sailing is one of those sports that we should be achieving in. In this context, I must mention Annalise Murphy for the performances she has given over the years, not least in Rio when she won a silver medal.

We qualified more people than we ever did before for Tokyo. We came away with about 20 top-10 positions. We had targeted 10 to 15. There were personal bests, national records, and finals’ qualifications.

This is due to the level of investment coming from government which is up around €14m. We have a new high-performance strategy that has been signed off by cabinet in terms of future investment that delivers such a strong message. We’re seeing a level of investment in sport we have never seen before, which is down to the Government seeing the importance of keeping young people involved in sport for life, for enjoyment and the health of the nation, as well as at high-performance level.

The Government also worked with us to get the athletes back training in the Sports Campus, in Inniscarra, and all the various training centres on June 8, 2020. The athletes were itching to get back so that was a key date for us all. In a broader sense, we definitely saw how important sport was through Covid-19 for the entire nation.

There are undoubtedly things we can do better. If we stand still, we’re not progressing. That’s why the approved strategy is so important, to increase the funding for high performance. We have to keep pace with the likes of Denmark and New Zealand, similarly-sized countries but ones who have been at it a lot longer and invest a lot more money than we do.

We need to increase that investment and are targeting four sports to win medals in Paris. We came close enough this time around but we want to broaden the base. Included in that will be talent identification, not just among athletes but among coaches and other key service providers, and maintaining the strong relationship with universities.