Seeds being sown as Ireland Olympic's medal haul inspiring next generation

SUCCESS BREEDS SUCCESS: In Ireland's greatest ever medal haul at an Olympics Rhys McClenaghan et al are inspiring the next generation. Picture: ©INPHO/James Crombie

Team Ireland has claimed seven medals across four different sports by athletes from half-a-dozen counties at these Olympic Games. More differences abound, obviously, but there are commonalities stitched through all these successes too.

Rhys McClenaghan, Kellie Harrington and Mona McSharry have been vocal and consistent in expressing their hopes that this summer will propel the next generation onto a similar path, and maybe even a higher trajectory again.

Rhasidat Adeleke expressed regret on Friday night that she couldn't win a 400m medal for the thousands cheering her at the Stade de France, and for the many, many more urging her on back at home.

Paul O’Donovan, speaking after he had won his third Olympic medal and defended his lightweight double sculls title with Fintan McCarthy, predicted matter-of-factly that there will absolutely be Irish athletes down the line who will surpass his achievements.

That’s hard to fathom now but then success does breed success.

The medals won have naturally focused most eyes on Paris and its surrounds but the ripple effect of all this has already been seen in towns and villages back home as various localities have giddied at the sight of their own sons and daughters excelling on the big stage.

Skibbereen Town Hall was jammed with 300 people as O’Donovan and McCarthy did their thing again. Clonmel’s Kickham Plaza was the place to be as Daire Lynch, partnered by Banbridge’s Philip Doyle, claimed a bronze medal in the men’s double sculls.

Portland Row in Dublin’s inner-city was awash with joy when Kellie Harrington defended her own Olympic title at Roland Garros. All this filters down much deeper than a fun night out and the potential of another shindig when the conquering heroes come home.

“That's the joy of watching different athletes, they have different characters and their own methods of doing things,” says McClenaghan. “With more athletes being successful, people back home can pick their own inspirational characters that they resonate with most.” 

Seeds are being sown right now, saplings nurtured, even as we reap this harvest.

Go back two years and a pause button was pressed on the national gymnastics underage gymnastics championships in the Sport Ireland Campus at Abbotstown while Rhys McClenaghan won his first World Championship gold medal in Liverpool.

Hundreds of kids stood and sat transfixed in the very hall where McClenaghan honed his craft as he declared himself the best on the planet. How could an experience like that not stay with a child, regardless of age and ability?

Last Saturday, when McClenaghan added Olympic gold to his major medal collection, there was a smaller but, in its way, even more significant number of teenagers in the same Abbotstown building in West Dublin taking in the final at the Bercy Arena.

These were the boys and girls from what is basically an ‘Olympic Start Squad’, kids in their early to mid-teenage years who have come through the system’s early years and been brought together to train centrally in state-of-the-art facilities.

One of them was James Hickey from the Phoenix Gymnastics Club in Dublin who competed in the European Junior Championships earlier this year. We’ll let Ciaran Gallagher, CEO of Gymnastics Ireland, connect those dots.

“James finished sixth on the Pommel in Rimini and he would have been following Rhys from the time he was knee-high to a grasshopper. He grew up wanting to be that guy. That’s a 15-year old from Dublin literally following in Rhys’ footsteps.” 

Gallagher remembers 2018, when McClenaghan and his coach Luke Carson were the first in the door at the new National Indoor Arena, and how it stayed that way for a time. Now they have 15 or 16 athletes working out of there every day.

Ireland’s current Olympians will light new fires in any number of bellies when they return for Monday’s celebratory homecoming in Dublin on Monday, and when they diverge down their own individual paths and return to their home places and acclaim anew.

St Patrick’s primary school in Magheralin will hope to have Daniel Wiffen pay a call in the coming weeks – once he’s done partying and travelling everywhere from Barcelona to Bali maybe – while Skibb have delayed theirs until O’Donovan returns from Worlds in Canada.

Those are vital but incalculable gains. Sport Ireland has made no bones about targeting medals in the last decade so it stands to reason that sports bringing back Olympic bling are doing themselves no harm in that sense.

“The answer in a monetary sense is difficult because we have had been having discussions with Sport Ireland for years now about, say, the next Olympic cycle and that is an ongoing conversation, but this all helps down the line,” says Gallagher.

“I can only thank Sport Ireland who have backed us to the hilt. We place a heavy emphasis on our commercial income but Sport Ireland still provide 50% of it and it has been increasing in value year on year.” 

Money kicks things into a higher gear, but none of it happens without the kind of spark that this last two weeks can bring. The next McClenaghan and Wiffen and Harrington is much further down the line now than in July.