Win or lose, Irish Olympians showing it's a triumph to be on Paris stage

Comments from Rhys McClenaghan and Aidan Walsh were instructive over the weekend.

RESPECT: Ireland’s Aidan Walsh with Makan Traore of France after their fight on Sunday. Pic: INPHO/Ryan Byrne

Sometimes in journalism, it’s all too easy to superimpose your thoughts on an athlete’s story, trying to get them to think or feel or express something that, in truth, is just a product of your own innate hunch.

But ultimately, their stories are theirs alone to write, even if someone else puts them on paper. That was made clear over the weekend in Paris via the words of two Irish competitors: Rhys McClenaghan and Aidan Walsh.

They were in different sports and had vastly different outcomes in their opening rounds – with McClenaghan coasting into the pommel horse final as number one seed but Walsh bowing out in his opening bout in boxing. Both had been on this stage before, and in Tokyo the fortunes were reversed, with Walsh thriving, winning bronze, and McClenaghan faltering, a mistake in the pommel horse final seeing his chance evaporate in an instant.

Here in Paris, they met triumph and disaster just the same. As McClenaghan stood before the Irish press pack on Saturday night, Tokyo was inevitably brought up. Had it been on his mind in Paris?

“No,” he said. “I’ve done a lot of competitions that you guys didn’t even watch in between so that’s at the back of my mind. It was an experience that was needed, obviously, because I’m standing here in front of you a two-time world champion.” McClenaghan was right, both to gently goad the press, who pay relatively little attention to most of his results in non-Olympic years, and to educate us about how much he’d extracted from the Tokyo experience – even if many others wished to frame it as failure.

“That just kind of shows how I can bounce back from disappointments,” he said. “Listen, I’m just enjoying being here, a two-time Olympian, two-time Olympic finalist. I’m very happy.” His relaxed, upbeat demeanour went against the story many of us might like to write: the sense of rising tension, the chronic stress, the pressing need for redemption in Paris. All that pressure. How could he deal with it?

But the reality? He’s having a grand old time in Paris. A stage that would terrify most is his safe space. You don’t reach the level McClenaghan has unless you apply vicious standards daily. Saturday’s final will be no different. “That takes a bit of pressure off the competition day,” he said. “Every single day I am treating it like a competition and it’s draining, as every day I am nervous, I am putting pressure on myself to perform a routine. It then makes moments like this easier. I’m familiar with it.” 

Olympians might live and work and socialise among us but they’re ultimately cut from a different cloth – and not just physically. You just had to watch Aidan Walsh’s interview with RTÉ’s Joe Stack yesterday after his first-round loss to France’s Makam Traore. Stack began in sympathetic fashion: “Commiserations.” But Walsh wasn’t indulging the pity party. “There’s no commiserations at all,” he said. “I’m winning in life, I’m happy to be here, happy to be competing. It’s an absolute privilege. To be here is an absolute miracle for me. Win, lose or draw, I’m healthy, I’m happy, I’ve great people around me.” 

For much of the time between Tokyo and Paris, Walsh was essentially retired due to mental health issues so getting back here seemed unlikely. After a first-round loss on this stage, many of us would find a dark room to sulk or cry. But he faced the cameras, expressing his gratitude. “I just want to say thank you to all the support at home. I know I’ve probably let a few people down, but it’s an absolute privilege to be here.” 

Walsh is a master’s student in sports psychology, and it shows. “Personally I am not defined by what I achieve in the ring. My medals don’t mean much to me. My mental health and the people around me mean the most to me in life.” 

There was victory in being here. There was joy, too. It was a great reminder that Olympians are here, first and foremost, because they truly love what they do – even if one chapter of their story doesn’t end the way they’d wanted.