When Ireland were no good at the Olympics, losing had a set of clothes. It was an exercise in covering up and dressing up. Everyone could see through it. Personal bests and national records were peddled as triumphs; being as good as you could be. Yes, of course. But.
But.
Medals were not a measure of our success. After Melbourne in 1956 there was just one Irish medal until Moscow in 1980. Ireland sent 61 athletes to Seoul in 1988, our biggest team in 40 years, and the best performance was an eighth-place finish. Since the last Paris Games, 100 years ago, there have been eight Olympics where Ireland won nothing.
At the Sydney Olympics in 2000, 80 nations won at least one medal, and, on that table, Ireland were ranked 64th. Ireland’s sole silver was delivered on the track by Sonia O’Sullivan. Unintentionally, her success clarified the problem. Sonia was not the outcome of an enlightened talent development programme; she was a glorious freak. To be a world class athlete she needed to be self-sufficient and, in a sense, entrepreneurial.
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This week, as Olympic medals arrived in clusters and with others on the way, it is hard to reckon that Sydney was a tipping point. Ireland’s performance at those Games had a bankrupt quality. Of the 64 athletes on the team, across 12 sports, O’Sullivan was the only one to reach a final. In the sports that had a knockout format, 34 Irish competitors didn’t get past the first round in their discipline.
With schoolyard cruelty a radio station in Dublin came up with a Flop of the Day feature during the Olympics. As soon as it was over, the infant Irish Sports Council, the age-old Olympic Council of Ireland, the Minister for Sport and the National Coaching and Training Centre were at each other’s throats.
Qualification criteria were a recurring source of conflict. Some athletes were sent to the Games on a ‘B’ qualifying standard; others weren’t. Some of the athletes were characterised as “Olympic tourists”. Just being at the Games was the summit of their ambition. To be an Olympian. Not necessarily to do anything with it.
A high-performance culture didn’t exist. Funding was handled by the Olympic Council of Ireland and distributed without binding criteria. Accountability was weak. Clientelism was rife. Everything about Irish Olympism was a straw house.
After the Sydney Games an independent report was commissioned. It took over five months to complete and ran to 61 pages. Hard conclusions were expressed in diplomatic language. Radical change was urgently needed. For some stakeholders that represented a naked threat. Civil war ensued. Without that bloodletting nothing would ever have changed. It needed to be adversarial. Dead wood and old thinking and turf wars needed to be eliminated from the system.
At the Sydney Olympics in 2000, 80 nations won at least one medal, and, on that table, Ireland were ranked 64th
Nothing changed quickly. Before the Athens Games in 2004 the assertion was repeatedly made that Ireland were sending “the best prepared team ever”. Empirically, this was true, but what was the benchmark? Better than what?
The Liveline mob who slaughtered the team during those Games couldn’t square this boast with a succession of middling performances that flickered and faded on the Games’ giant radar. It was still too soon for the post-Sydney reforms to take hold. There was still too much resistance and flagrant ignorance.
Twenty years later nobody needs to say that the team Ireland has sent to Paris is the “best prepared ever”. It is self-evident. Nothing less would be accepted. This is what the high performance network was designed to produce, pro forma. That was the giant cultural leap. Around Irish Olympic sport a no-excuses environment was created.
The medals that Mona McSharry and Daniel Wiffen have won in the pool this week are the most vivid expression of the change in Irish sport over the last 20 years.
Swimming used to be one of the federations consistently incapable of producing athletes who could cut it at the highest level. Ireland didn’t have its first 50 metre pool until 2002. That campaign had gone on for years. It wasn’t a priority for anybody in government.
Between Sydney and Tokyo Ireland sent 21 swimmers to the Olympics. Those athletes competed in 35 events and until Mona McSharry in Tokyo, only Andrew Bree and Shane Ryan had qualified from their heats over the previous five Olympics. National records were set at three of those Games, but those numbers were toothless on a global stage. On Tuesday night Wiffen swam an Olympic record.
Over the last few days there have been Irish athletes who just couldn’t find their best stuff on command. In sport, that is a universal story. But once upon a time you would drill into those failures and find a flawed system. Insufficient funding, inadequate facilities, a support structure not fit for purpose.
That’s not the case now. That’s the difference.
