IF FINGER-POINTING ever became an Olympic sport, Ireland would be gold medal contenders. Six months after Beijing, the review process over why we didn’t achieve greater success has turned into an ugly blame game – despite the three medals won in boxing. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so predictable: another sorry episode of politics interfering with sport which has plagued Ireland’s Olympic preparations since 1988 and has contributed to our spiral of mediocrity.
Depending on who you believe, we're either going in the right direction or the wrong one. But in reality we're going nowhere unless all those involved are co-operating. On Wednesday, the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) presented its assessment. A Review of the Irish Team's Performance in Beijing 2008, prepared by Genesis Consulting, rated Ireland lowest on a list of eight comparator nations – New Zealand, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Croatia, Slovenia and Slovakia. The review criticised the lack of ambition shown by many of our Olympic sports and accused them of having no concrete objectives for London in 2012. Although independent in theory, the review was unmistakably slanted in favour of the OCI, pointing the finger of blame in the direction of the Irish Sports Council (ISC).
A fortnight earlier the ISC had presented its side of the same story. The Quadrennial High Performance Review, carried out by Wharton, covered both the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing and rated Ireland's overall performance as an improvement on Athens 2004. Yet again it was unmistakably slanted, this time in favour of the ISC. Why Ireland won no medals outside of boxing, why only one athlete and two swimmers achieved a personal best, wasn't the fault of the ISC. Instead, the OCI needed to start demonstrating a performance return from any ISC investment.
In both cases the reports constituted thinly disguised validations of the roles of their commissioning organisations in Ireland’s Olympic preparations – while being critical of the other’s. At least there was consensus that the OCI partnership with the ISC, clearly crucial for the betterment of our Olympic sports, did not exist either in reality or spirit.
However, if the three Beijing boxing medals show anything, it is what can be achieved when a shared goal is pursued with careful planning and single-minded determination. Aware of this, it is time the OCI and the ISC agreed to move on and to leave point-scoring to our Olympic competitors.