Ireland fails to strike gold as base for Olympic teams

THE EXCITEMENT that greeted the announcement of the London Olympics in 2012 was fuelled by the prospect of international Olympic teams travelling to Ireland prior to the games. However, it is looking more like a fading hope than a real prospect as just a few teams have signed up to train here prior to London.

As the London organising committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games offers grants of up to £25,000 (€28,074) for Olympic teams to use any of its 600 approved sites around the UK, the Republic is set to remain overlooked as a destination with poor facilities.

Ireland has attracted the USA synchronised swimming team to the National Aquatic Centre in Dublin; the UK Paralympic swimming squad has also signed up for a week’s training there, while the Hungarian and UK water polo teams will use the venue for a training camp and matches next week. It represents a poor return on what former minister for sport John O’Donoghue described as a “golden opportunity”.

The organising committee has confirmed 81 of its venues will be used for pre-Olympic preparation and predicted many more would come on board in the next 12 months.

The big-spending USA track and field team, the jewel in the crown, has a provisional agreement with a Birmingham local authority to prepare there. The Irish team will take up residence in Richmond-upon-Thames with a base in Landsbury House, an area part-time London resident and Irish chef de mission Sonia O’Sullivan knows well.

Ireland’s low visibility in selling itself as a pre-Olympic venue is in stark contrast with the host nation. The London organising committee has a budget of £9 million to use as grant money to attract overseas teams, and a venue guide was distributed to over 200 countries following the Beijing Olympics in 2008. That guide alone had over 800 applications from various UK local authorities and centres hoping to be included.

The incentive money available from the committee is almost equal to the entire 2011 allocation of the Irish Sports Council to the 57 Irish national governing bodies, which received €10.86 million this year. It is more than the €7.8 million that went to Irish high-performance athletes, our Olympic medal hopefuls.

A high-level co-ordinating group, chaired by the department, was established in November 2009 to explore opportunities and develop initiatives across the arts, cultural, sports and tourism sectors from the London games.