RTE Sports About Ireland’s Olympians
“If you want to be an Olympic athlete, you must choose your parents very carefully.”
– Istvan Balyi, Former East European Coach All men are not born equal. Some are faster, stronger, more gifted.
The Beijing Olympics, in the summer of 2008, will showcase the greatest athletes the world has ever known. More than 10,500 athletes from over 200 countries will compete – among them Team Ireland, with more than more than four dozen world-class contenders, national champions, the very best that modern Ireland can produce.
Some of our runners, walkers, throwers, boxers, shooters, swimmers, rowers, sailors, fencers, badminton players and equestrian teams will be potential medalists – either now, or in 2012. Others will make Olympic finals, break records or produce personal bests. But what exactly has Ireland done, or not done, to develop these special athletes? What ingredients make up an Olympic athlete? Are great athletes born, or are they made? And what is life really like for a world-class Irish athlete?
“Ireland’s Olympians” is an RTÉ TV Sport project, produced in co-operation with the Olympic Council of Ireland and the Irish Sports Council. A TV series, and an accompanying book, it offers a rare insight into the lives and minds of Olympians, past and present. Featuring contributions from Olympic medallists Ronnie Delany, Michael Carruth, John Treacy, Sonia O’Sullivan, Stephen Martin and Steve Redgrave, there are also in-depth interviews with leading Irish athletes and international experts across a wide range of sports – including Derval O’Rourke, David Gillick, Eileen O’Keeffe, Robert Heffernan, Paul Hession, Joanne Cuddihy, Alistair Cragg, Jamie Costin, Olive Loughnane (athletics), Kenny Egan (boxing), Gearoid Towey (rowing), Derek Burnett (shooting), Tim Goodbody (sailing) and Eoin Rheinisch (canoeing).
This book is for the sports fan – but also for the weekend warrior, the ambitious, the curious, for parents, coaches, managers and athletes who strive to better understand the workings of body and mind, seeking answers to questions such as…
What’s the easiest gold medal to win?
Why has no white man every run under 10 seconds for the 100 metres?
Why does it take 10,000 hours to become a great athlete?
Why are most of Ireland’s best athletes living and training overseas?
What is the best age to start playing sport? What sports should a young child be playing? How young is too young to specialise?
Why do so few promising juniors go on to senior success? And why does Ireland miss so many late developers?
Why is “Talent Identification” the new “big thing” in sport?
Can the length of toes and fingers, body size, date of birth or birthplace influence a child’s ability in sport?
How do great athletes “override” mind and body, and push themselves to the limit?
How do ice baths work?
How can the GAA help develop the next generation of Olympians?
How does immigration help Irish sport?
Why does gene therapy threaten the whole future of sport?
Sportsfile, Ireland’s award-winning photo agency, provides the dazzling photographs which accompany the text.
Quotes from “Ireland’s Olympians”
“My earliest sporting memory is watching my dad coach a rowing team. I remember asking why one of them wasn’t trying… the one called the cox. So anytime I thought someone wasn’t trying, I called him a cox… Mum says I embarrassed my parents a lot as an eight-year-old.”
– Gavin Noble, Ireland’s leading triathlete
“We were training in a small town, outside Athens. We had just finished for the day. I had dropped off my coach and physio and I was driving up a small country road. I was hit by a water truck, broke my back in two places.”
– Jamie Costin, international race walker
“I felt my shoulder snap under the pressure of the water. I got swept away, couldn’t reach the bank. And I couldn’t swim with the dislocated shoulder.”
– Eoin Rheinisch, Olympic canoeist
“That adrenalin you feel before a race, that’s not just aggression, or competitive spirit – it’s fear as well. Fear of not performing, fear of mistakes, fear of world-class opponents.”
– David Gillick, European Champion.
“If a child can’t handle doing sport four days a week and doing the Leaving Cert, what are they going to do in real life?”
– Derval O’Rourke, World Champion
“In sporting terms, actually, we’re all at war against China.”
– Simon Clegg, Chief Executive of the British Olympic Association.
TV Programme
Monday nights – 7.30pm: starting Monday 30th June
Watch The Show
Ireland’s Olympians is a brand new five-part TV series which asks what makes an Olympic athlete? Are great athletes born, or are they made? And what is life really like for a world-class Irish athlete? The series will feature in-depth interviews with leading Irish athletes and international experts across a wide range of sports – including Derval O’Rourke, David Gillick, Eileen O’Keeffe, Kenny Egan, Paul Hession, Joanne Cuddihy and Alistair Cragg.
The Beijing Olympics, in the summer of 2008, will showcase some of the greatest athletes the world has ever known. More than 10,500 athletes from over 200 countries will compete – among them Team Ireland, with some more than four dozen world-class contenders, the very best that modern Ireland can produce.
Some of our runners, walkers, throwers, boxers, shooters, rowers, sailors and showjumpers will be potential medallists – either now, or in 2012. Others will make Olympic finals, break records or produce personal bests. But how much do we really know about the Olympics, and our Olympians?
The series begins with asking why, as another Games approaches, do we expect so much from Ireland’s Olympians? Eight years after Ireland’s last medal, where will the next success come from? Is there any chance that success might come in track and field?
Since the foundation of the State, Ireland has secured just eight Olympic gold medals. By the time of the Beijing Games, it will be 52 years since our last track and field gold -Ronnie Delany’s victory in the 1500m in 1956. John Treacy (Silver, Marathon, 1984) and Sonia O’Sullivan (Silver, 5000m, 2000) came close, and so did Eamon Coghlan (4th place twice – in the 1500m in 1976 and the 5000m in 1980).
Ireland’s Olympians and accompanying hardback book, from RTÉ Sport is produced with the full co-operation of the Olympic Council of Ireland and the Irish Sports Council.
PROGRAMME 2: IRISH STRENGTHS
July 7
Boxing, Throwing, Shooting, Cycling, Walking
Featuring Kenny Egan, Darren Sutherland (Boxing), Eileen O’Keeffe (Hammer), Derek Burnett (Shooting), Nicholas Roche (Cycling), Olive Loughnane (Athletics)
Of the more than 300 gold medals to be awarded in an Olympics, just 47 can be won in athletics. A mere 34 are up for grabs in swimming, another of the highest-profile sports. Recognising this, many nations have had significant success targeting events outside the mainstream, or by playing to their national strengths. Denmark has done well in badminton, handball and shooting, Sweden at jumps, Holland in hockey and cycling. In Athens, Australia finished fourth in the medals race, without winning a single athletics gold. Taking past performance in major championships as a guide, the statistics suggest that Ireland’s best Olympic hopes might lie in shooting, rowing, middle distance running, boxing, walking, hammer throwing and cycling.
PROGRAMME 3: AN ISLAND NATION
July 14
Featuring Gearoid Towey (Rowing), Ciara Peelo, Tim Goodbody (Sailing), Eoin Rheinisch (Canoeing)
As an island nation, Ireland might expect more success from water sports than a solitary Olympic medal, and that nearly three decades ago, at the Moscow Games, in 1980, when David Wilkins and Jamie Wilkinson took silver in the Flying Dutchman class. In Beijing, the nation will be represented by at least seven boats: in rowing, sailing and canoeing. The pride of the fleet, in recent years, has been the Men’s Lightweight Rowing Four, which has made the final of two of the last three Olympics, finishing fourth in Atlanta and sixth in Athens. In 2006, Gearoid Towey, Paul Griffin, Richard Archibald and Eugene Coakley won the overall Rowing World Cup and took a bronze medal at the World Championships. They will be significant contenders at the Beijing Olympics, if they can qualify, but they’ve left it very late. “Ireland’s Olympians” follows the team to the final qualifying regatta in Poznan, Poland.
PROGRAMME 4: NO PAIN, NO GAIN
July 21
Featuring Jamie Costin, Rob Heffernan, Derval O’Rourke, David Gillick, Mark Carroll, Olive Loughnane, Roisin McGettigan, Joanne Cuddihy (Athletics), Nicholas Roche (Cycling), Scott Evans (Badminton), Eoin Rheinisch (Canoeing)
Four years ago, just nine days before his event at the Athens Olympics, Jamie Costin, the international race walker, was involved in a near-fatal car crash. “We were training in a small town, outside Athens,” he recalls. “We had just finished for the day. I had dropped off my coach and physio and I was driving up a small country road. I was hit by a water truck, broke my back in two places.”
It was two years before he could compete again, making slow progress to the full walking distance of 50km, the longest endurance event on the athletics programme, and one of the most gruelling. Costin has now fought his way back, with no lasting effects, qualifying for the 2007 world championships and the 2008 Olympics.
Injuries, accidents, pain and discomfort are all occupational hazards for professional athletes. “Ireland’s Olympians” talks to Jamie Costin, Eoin Rheinisch and Nicholas Roche about the serious accidents they’ve all suffered, and recovered from, on the road to the Beijing Olympics.
PROGRAMME 5: THE CHINA CRISIS
August 4
“In sporting terms, actually, we’re all at war against China.”
– Simon Clegg, chief executive of the British Olympic Association.
For the best part of a decade, China has been pumping resources into its sporting system, aiming to take top place in the medals table at the Beijing Olympics, toppling the USA from the spot it has held since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Shooting, diving, table tennis, badminton, weightlifting, gymnastics and rowing are among the events in which China expects to dominate. The world’s most populous country can pick its athletes from 1.3 billion people, indicating that China is home to more than two million potentially world-class athletes. China’s elite sporting system boasts 650,000 gymnasiums and stadiums, and supports an estimated 17,000 developing athletes.
Add to that the heat, the humidity, the pollution, the jetlag and the unfamiliar food and August looks set to be a torrid time for European athletes. “Beijing is probably the ultimate in terms of environmental challenges,” says Dr Giles Warrington, Sports Science Advisor to the Olympic Council of Ireland. “It will be hot and very humid in Beijing at the time of the Games. Plus, the sun is incredibly strong.”
“The China Crisis” looks at the challenges facing Irish athletes in Beijing and hears why most of the team will be avoiding the Opening Ceremony.
Ten To Watch In Beijing
by Niall O’Flynn
The Beijing Olympics, starting on the 8th day of the 8th month of 2008, will showcase some of the greatest athletes the world has ever known. More than 10,500 athletes from over 200 countries will compete – among them Team Ireland, with more than four dozen world-class contenders.
More than 40 Irish athletes have qualified for the Beijing Games – including contestants from athletics track and field, badminton, boxing, canoeing, cycling, eventing, fencing, sailing, rowing, shooting, showjumping, swimming and triathlon.
Some of those Irish are potential medallists – either now, or in 2012. Others will make Olympic finals, break national records or produce personal bests. Some will find the pressure too much, or the contest too tough. But each and every one is a very special athlete, a national champion or an international contender.
At the 2007 World Athletics Championships, in Osaka, the last truly global athletics event, Ireland’s best performers were Eileen O’Keeffe (hammer) and Robert Heffernan (20K walk), who both finished sixth. Two other Irish made finals, both in the steeplechase – Roisin McGettigan and Fionnuala Britton. There were also four sprint semi-finalists – David Gillick, Paul Hession, Derval O’Rourke and Joanne Cuddihy.
In the 2007 end-of-year rankings, published by the International Association of Athletics Federations, seven Irish athletes were ranked in the world’s top 20 – Eileen O’Keeffe, Rob Heffernan, Alistair Cragg (3,000m & 5,000m), Paul Hession (200m), Joanne Cuddihy (400m), Róisín McGettigan (3,000m steeplechase) and Colin Griffin (50K walk). Seven other Irish athletes are in the world’s top 50. O’Keeffe and Heffernan also made the top ten lists in two of sport’s most respected journals, Britain’s Athletics International and America’s Track and Field News.
“If there’d been a European Championships last year, we would have had an unbelievable medal haul. We are among the best Europeans,” says Patsy McGonagle, the Athletics Team Manager. “The only positive outcome of a European Championships, with this squad of athletes, would be medals.”
Former world champion Sonia O’Sullivan has also praised the current generation. “It was a good showing at the world championships. There were finalists, people breaking Irish records. Everybody was running at the standard that it took to get there. Another year on, 2008, people may improve another few places. They’re knocking on the door, definitely, of being close to medals – and once you’re in the final, anything can happen.”
Taking past performance in major championships as a guide, the statistics suggest that Ireland’s best Olympic hopes might lie in boxing, shooting, rowing, walking, hammer throwing and cycling.
In 2007, Ireland’s best sporting performance, in world terms, came in a minority sport – clay pigeon shooting. At the World Shotgun Championships, in Cyprus, Ireland won individual silver and team bronze, the best result in Irish shooting history. Philip Murphy, from Carlow, took the individual silver medal, and added a team bronze with Olympians David Malone and Derek Burnett. Derek Burnett, Ireland’s Beijing representative, also won an individual silver medal during 2007, at the ISSF World Cup in Maribor, Slovenia.
Other sports in which Ireland is traditionally “world class” include boxing, rowing and cycling. Of the 20 medals Ireland has won in the Olympic Games, no fewer than nine have been taken home by Irish boxers. A further five Irish fighters have won medals at the World Championships. That’s a proud tradition, and one which is being built on to this day. In fact, if women’s boxing was an Olympic sport, Ireland would be heading to Beijing as one of the favourites for the lightweight gold medal, in the person of Katie Taylor, the reigning World and European champion.
Taylor, from Bray in County Wicklow, won the 60kg World Championship in 2006, and added the last three European titles – 2005, 2006 and 2007. She is also an international soccer player. “It’s very disappointing, very frustrating, really, looking at the lads training for the Olympics, and I know that I can’t be there with them,” she says. “But I’m nearly sure now that it’s going to be in, in 2012, so that’s something for me to train for, to look forward to. So I’m going to stay amateur until the London Olympics and hopefully win the gold medal there.”
Katie Taylor, of course, isn’t the only success story in Irish boxing. Since January 2006, Irish boxers have claimed over 85 gold, silver and bronze medals at international tournaments. At the 2007 European Union Championships, in Dublin, Irish boxers won three golds and two silver medals. In one magnificent day at the National Stadium, light heavyweight Kenneth Egan, middleweight Darren Sutherland and welterweight Roy Sheehan all became EU champions.
In Beijing, Ireland will be represented by five boxers, a vast improvement on Athens, 2004, where Limerick middleweight Andy Lee was our sole representative, and on Sydney 2000, where Corkman Michael Roche was Ireland’s only boxer.
It’s a strong team, too, with three of the Irish ranked well inside the world’s top fifteen boxers, in their respective weight categories. Four of the five have won Olympic qualifying tournaments in the run-up to Beijing.
Rowing, too, is one of Ireland’s most successful sports. Since 1991, Irish crews have won a total of fifteen world championship medals – four gold, five silver and six bronze. There has also been significant success at Under-23 and Junior level.
The pride of the fleet, in recent years, has been the Men’s Lightweight Four, which has made the final of two of the last three Olympics – finishing fourth in Atlanta and sixth in Athens. In 2006, the four won the overall Rowing World Cup and took a bronze medal at the World Championships.
In cycling, Ireland will have two road racers and a mountain biker at the Beijing Games. A further four bikes will take part in the Paralympics.
TEN TO WATCH IN BEIJING…
Paul Hession
Athletics, 200m
Galway
Ireland’s fastest man – and one of the quickest in Europe through 2007, he has been running consistently fast times for more than a year, dipping under the old Irish record, and the Olympic 200m “A” standard, some half a dozen times, and breaking into the Top 20 in the world rankings. To make an Olympic final, he needs to string two or three of those world-class performances together.
Derval O’Rourke
Athletics, 100m hurdles
Cork
The golden girl of Irish athletics, Derval O’Rourke is one of the few Irish athletes who can claim to have won a world title. The 2006 World Indoor Champion in 60m hurdles, she also won a silver medal in the 100m hurdles at 2006 European Athletics Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden.
David Gillick
Athletics, 400m
Dublin
The double European Indoor 400m champion, the Irish record holder and one of the fastest Europeans, indoors, of all time. At the 2007 World Athletics Championships, he was one of just four European athletes to reach the semi-finals of the Men’s 400 metres.
Eileen O’ Keeffe
Athletics, Hammer
Kilkenny
Irish champion, Irish record-holder and Athlete of the Year in 2007, O’Keeffe, who has a personal best of 73.21m, is now one of Ireland’s best-performing athletes on the world stage. Sixth in the women’s hammer final at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, in the IAAF end-of-year rankings for 2007, she was ranked 13th-best in the world.
Roisin McGettigan
Athletics, 3000m steeplechase
Wicklow
Ranked well inside the Top 15 in the world in steeplechase, she finished tenth in the steeplechase final at the World Athletics Championships in Osaka. At the 2007 World Athletics Finals, in Stuttgart, the Wicklow woman produced the performance of her life to win silver in the 3,000m steeplechase – and collected the biggest pay cheque of her career, ?20,000.
Robert Heffernan
Athletics, 20k walk
Cork
Heffernan is one of Ireland’s most consistent athletes. Sixth at the 2007 World Athletics Championships, in Osaka, he is no stranger to performing well at major events – he finished 14th at the World Championships in Edmonton in 2001 and eighth at the 2002 Europeans in Munich.
Kenneth Egan
Boxing, Light Heavyweight
Dublin
The Irish boxing team’s captain, the 26-year-old Dubliner is the reigning EU champion, a European bronze medallist (2006), winner of eight senior Irish titles, and gold medallist at the Olympic qualifying tournament in Athens, Greece.
Darren Sutherland
Boxing, Middleweight
Dublin
Darren “The Dazzler” Sutherland is one of Ireland’s brightest prospects. The DCU student is the current EU champion, the winner of five Multi Nations gold medals, and won the Olympic qualifying tournament in Athens, Greece.
Derek Burnett
Shooting
Longford
On course for his third Olympics, Derek Burnett was one of Ireland’s best performers at the Athens Games, four years ago, where he finished joint 7th. Currently 12th in the world rankings, he was a member of the team that won team bronze at the World Shotgun Championships, in 2007 and added an individual silver medal at the ISSF World Cup.
Scott Evans
Badminton
Dublin
Evans, who became the No. 1 player in Ireland at just 16 years of age, is now training fulltime in Denmark. His recent highlights include wins over former World No. 1, Lee Hyun Il of Korea and World No. 15 Shoji Sato (Japan). In April of 2008, he became the first Irish player ever to reach the quarter-finals of the European Singles Championships, beating high-ranked players from Bulgaria, Germany and Russia, before losing in two tight sets to the No.1 seed, Denmark’s Kenneth Jonassen, the World No. 5 who once held the record for the fastest smash in the world – 298 km/h (185 mph).
© RTÉ 2008
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