Postcard from Paris: Paralympians' stories tied to what they've overcome

Eoghan Cormican has witnessed some memorable sporting achievements and listened to what it means to Team Ireland in the French capital.

MEMORABLE MOMENT: Katie-George Dunlevy of Ireland, second from left. with pilot Linda Kelly and parents John and Alana after winning silver in the women's B road race on day nine of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games at Clichy-sous-bois in Paris, France. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

This Paris postcard begins in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Five days before Christmas last year, Mona McSharry took our call from her university apartment for an end-of-season chat. The Sligo swimmer proceeded, over the next 40 minutes, to bowl us over with her raw honesty, opening up for the first time about growing to hate her sport and consequently hating herself.

We view McSharry and all other high-performing athletes through the prism of times, results, and of course medals. We do this without having any idea about what is going on in their lives, and what might be impacting those metrics we define them by.

We can, of course, have no idea as to what is going on in their everyday lives until they are comfortable enough to share with a relative stranger, either sitting in front of them or ringing several time zones from Tennessee, the darker and more difficult periods of their existence.

In Paris for these Paralympic Games, one cannot truly understand the athlete’s success without first knowing their story. Theirs is more than simply sporting excellence.

Paralympians don’t like to be singled out. They don’t like to be viewed differently to the non-disabled athletes who populated the French capital three and four weeks earlier. They want to be praised and knit-picked the same as we did Kellie, Mona, Rhys and Rhasidat.

Covering the Paralympics this past week, there was no desire to paint the Irish athletes as different. There was a necessity, though, to highlight what they had overcome. Their success owed to their story. You couldn’t tell one and not the other.

And the same as Mona in her Knoxville apartment five days before Christmas, their willingness to open up on how they felt when losing their sight, a limb, or the ability to walk has been every bit as impressive as the performances that put them on podiums or within reach of one.

An 11-year-old Katie-George Dunlevy was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa and told she could go blind by 30. She has no peripheral vision. Her world is viewed through a straw.

She was offered help at school once the diagnosis was delivered, but flat out refused it as she didn’t want to stand out as different.

“The struggles I had as a child, I’ve had challenges all my life,” she said after winning gold.

“Learning to deal with sight loss, I’m gay as well, so I have had to deal with that. That was hard when I was younger, as a child and teenager, I really struggled with it.” Eve McCrystal was Dunlevy’s track pilot. She is without a disability. She is not without her struggles, though.

Eve’s dad, Pat, took his own life in September 2017. The unimaginable grief brought about by his loss, she packed away and didn’t fully process. Her response was to throw herself back into sport.

Here in Paris, with retirement entered off the back of a sixth Paralympic medal, grief and other pent-up emotion poured out of her during an extraordinary post-race interview in the middle of the baking velodrome.

“It’s just 10 years, like. It’s just the kids and work. I’m a single mother, and it’s been fucking hard. I lost my father, and I think I just kept grief and everything in. I can retire now so fucking proud. I’m so emotional, and I’m the strong one in this relationship,” she said, with Dunlevy sat beside her.

The venues for this Paralympic Games have been stunning. Blind football is enrapturing enough without being played in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

The start and finish to the Para triathlon classes underneath and atop Pont Alexandre III is perfectly picturesque. And yet we found ourselves continually drawn back to the athletes.

Kerrie Leonard told this writer the only reason she attended the two weekly meetings of her college archery club was because she didn’t trust herself to be alone in her bedroom.

“I knew I was in a dark enough place that I was worried about leaving myself alone,” she said.

Cavan powerlifter Britney Arendse has a forearm tattoo that reads ‘Faith, Hope, and Love’. The words are tied to her second chance in life. As a nine-year-old, Britney’s heart stopped three times after being involved in a car accident that put her in a wheelchair.

She persevered. They all did. To know what they persevered through elevates what they achieved in Paris.