Egan says he would be lost without grants scheme

IRISH SPORTS COUNCIL GRANTS:KENNY EGAN says he wouldn't know where he'd be without a grant from the Irish Sports Council. This is not a throwaway remark. It's often assumed that a grant is intended to help an athlete achieve success, but as Egan has learned, achieving success is one thing; dealing with it is another.

Of the €2.65 million in grants to be divided between some 273 athletes in 2010, Egan knows he’s one of the luckiest – one of 15 who receives the top amount of €40,000. Boxing, actually, has done the best of any sport, with grants totalling €551,000.

Egan doesn’t deny that with this comes responsibility, pressure, expectation, all of which are the price of success. Egan doesn’t deny he’d a hard time dealing with them, all the while aware his fellow Olympic medallist from Beijing, Darren Sutherland, wasn’t so lucky.

“2009 was probably the worst year of my career,” says Egan, “inside and outside the ring. I didn’t perform nearly as well as I should have, with all the distractions after Beijing.

“I can’t say I was young and naive. But I was naive. Listening to too many different people, people I shouldn’t have trusted, and did trust. Before Beijing I had about five or six close friends. When I came back I had about 100 friends. It was crazy.

“I thought of retiring many a time. And even worse. Thank God, I’ve a close family behind me. We stuck together. Beijing is gone now, history. I don’t even know where the medal is. It’s at home in a drawer somewhere.

“I thought as well about going pro. I saw the bright lights of LA, New York. I was ready to sign on the dotted line. But I said no, the Sports Council have been great, for the last 10 years now. If it wasn’t for them I don’t know what I would be doing. So I’m 100 per cent happy now with the decision I made.”

Egan, at 28, is already thinking about London 2012, knowing it will be his endgame. The journey is under way, starting this weekend at the National Championships, where Egan aims to win a record 10th successive title (his first two at middleweight; his last seven at light heavyweight).

Six other boxers receive the maximum €40,000, but for Egan, it’s not all about the money; it’s also about the support structure that comes with it. Without such support he doesn’t know how he’d have come through 2009 – and that’s what he still wonders about Sutherland, who ended his life in London in September of last year, having turned professional.

“I still can’t believe he’s gone,” says Egan. “But the lesson I learnt is the support of the Sports Council needs to be there for when you’re successful, as much when you’re trying to be successful.

“Given the recession, it’s great to see us get top funding again. But all that money is spent, and spent wisely. We’re not just blowing money. We’re going to Russia, Ukraine, for the proper sparring, and so on.”

Spending the money wisely is the very theme of the 2010 grants – or, as officially termed, the high-performance carding scheme. Along with the €2.65 million in individual grants, another €5.7 million goes to the high-performance programmes of 16 sports – and despite the economic downturn, this is effectively the same as 2009.

However, there is more stringent monitoring in that athlete performances are reviewed quarterly, and if targets are not being met the grants are cut. The funding for junior and developmental athletes is also pooled, rather than earmarked for individuals.

Eamonn Coghlan, who since November has been chairman of the Sport Council’s new High Performance Committee, helped to design the makeover, and believes it offers a fairer and more accountable system.

“Take athletics,” he says, “which is now more performance based, about reaching targets, and also reviewed quarterly as they go through the year. If they’re not reaching their targets we’ll want to know why, what’s going wrong, and what we need to do to address that. It’s about developing a better pathway to success.

“Money is not the only thing, but it is an ingredient in the support system. Along with the science, education programmes, counselling work. And it’s a fantastic relief for the athlete rather than going after a shoe company trying to get a few quid, or begging your way into a race, for the hope of a few quid.

“But money doesn’t win medals, and my only fear was that athletes will put the cart before the horse. In other words, their objective was to achieve the criteria, to get the few quid. Now, if they achieve the criteria, they’ll still be monitored on a quarterly basis, to see if their performance is going to be achieved.

“In other words they have to deliver on what they’ve clearly identified in their application form. It’s not a matter of giving Derval O’Rourke €40,000, and saying ‘see you in August’. And rather than just coming up with a list of names, we are now asking questions.”