Kevin Kilty on Ireland’s Olympic mission

Kevin Kilty knew he'd accomplished his first mission when he suddenly joked to himself: "If I'm ever going to have a heart attack, this is the place to have it."

The place is Uberlândia, about 400 miles northwest of Rio. It's already scratched the surface of Irish sporting history as the venue for the worst ever defeat for the Republic of Ireland soccer team, when they lost 7-0 to Brazil, back in May 1982.

The assumption is things will run a little smoother, next year, when it hosts the Irish Olympic and Paralympics team in their final countdown to Rio, 2016.

That may still sound like some distance away, but Kilty’s been counting down the days for over a year already. Every thought during his every working day is now entirely lost on Rio.

Because, as chef de mission for the Irish team, Kilty is overseeing almost every facet of preparation and expectation before, during and even after Rio – with the gently ironic exception of acting as team chef: someone else will do the cooking.

His mission ranges from knowing the Rio lingo to ensuring every blazer fits for the opening ceremony. “The buck stops here,” Kilty says, lifting President Harry Truman’s old phrase, with a similarly amenable embrace.

There is, he also agrees, still an element of surprise about his appointment: Sonia O’Sullivan needed no introduction when she was made chef de mission for London 2012, although not many people had heard the name Kevin Kilty, when it first emerged, in December 2013.

‘Unanimously approved’

"It came as a surprise to me, too," he says. "I was the last person expecting a phone call from Pat Hickey (the president of the Olympic Council of Ireland), asking me would I be interested. Although straightaway I said yes.

“It then went before the council, and thankfully was unanimously approved. I am still relatively new to the Olympic Council of Ireland, and we have had some fantastic chef de missions in past, like Sonia, in London.

“So I see it as an enormous privilege and honour, and although it’s not an easy role, it’s one I’m certainly enjoying.

“London was effectively a home Games, insofar as we could keep some athletes at home up until the last minute. Rio is completely different. We can’t be shuttling people back and forward. The time difference is not too bad (Brazil is four hours behind in summertime), but the timing of arrival and acclimatisation and all of that is far more challenging.

“Even the language, Portuguese, is difficult enough to understand, and I have to put my hand up on that one. If there was any problem in London we were only an hour from home. In Rio we won’t have that luxury.”

Everything about Rio will be new – the first Olympics to be staged in South America. Which is why finding a place like Uberlândia, the final holding camp before Irish athletes enter the Olympic cauldron, became Kilty’s first mission: he scouted various venues on his first trip to Brazil last April, yet quickly realised Uberlândia ticked all the boxes.

“The first priority was sealing a deal on our training camp. It’s the classic scenario of booking too early and paying too much, or leaving it too late and everything is gone.

“But we managed to get a very good deal for Uberlândia. It’s a relatively new, modern city, with all the facilities we need, and a one-and-a-half-hour flight down to Rio. We’ll be using the Praia club, and I’ve never seen anything like it.

“It has two Olympic-sized swimming pools, more indoor venues that you can count on two hands (plus a beautiful outdoor running track), and it’s secure, safe, and less than 10 minutes from an excellent hospital.”

Hence Kilty’s heart-attack joke – although his mission only began with finding Uberlândia. Kilty was back last August, during actual Games time (August 5th-21st, 2016), scouting the various competition venues (completed or otherwise), working out a team transport strategy.

Last summer’s World Cup, staged throughout Brazil, resulted in several transport nightmares – Sao Paulo experiencing a world traffic jam record, a 344km tailback of cars, a few weeks before the first game. Rio won’t be as bad, and Kilty reckons the weather should actually be ideal.

“Except for a little monsoon type rain one afternoon, the weather last August was fantastic. The humidity wasn’t bad. The heat wasn’t bad. The air quality was fine. Rio is in a sort of bowl, surrounded by mountains, but there is no heavy industry there, so you don’t really get any air pollution.

‘Very Condensed’

“There’s no doubt it is a very condensed city, and moving around will be a bit of a challenge. For athletes it won’t be a problem. For spectators it will be more difficult, and, unlike London, I don’t think it will be possible to take in a couple of different venues a day.”

Kilty is speaking with some notable Olympic credentials, as shooting event leader and coach in both Beijing 2008 and London 2012, and Hickey wouldn’t have hand-picked him unless he felt Kilty was up to the task.

O’Sullivan was the ideal chef de mission for London, given she lives there for half the year, and knew the transport and sporting infrastructure inside out. Kilty, as a shooter, knew little about Rio but all about setting up distant targets and then taking steady aim.

Kilty actually came to the sport of shooting by chance, too, soon realising his knack of helping others reach their maximum potential.

“It actually started on a corporate entertainment outing, for a day, to a shooting ground in Courtlough, in north county Dublin. I quite literally fired a few shots, had some dinner, then went home thinking, ‘I like this’. And I was back out there the following weekend.

“I’d done various sports over the years, including some GAA, even some cross-country running, with Ballyfermot AC. But what I liked about shooting was its precision, and discipline. That appealed to my character. I like to work in the detail, and shooting really brought that out in me.

"I competed for a few years, up until 2005, but retired in my 30s after realising I had gone as far as he could. But then I think I always had a stronger love for the coaching side, and have been down that road ever since, working with the likes of Derek Burnet (the four-time Irish Olympian)."

Now living in Chapelizod, Kilty has also become the first Irishman elected onto the 13-member executive committee of the international shooting board.

He’s also taken a voluntary sabbatical from his current profession in the financial services sector, as head of IT at Merrion Capital Group, effectively making Rio his solitary mission in life these days.

Medical matters

“It will be a full-time role for me, but that’s a sacrifice I’m prepared to make. We do it for the love of our sport, although I have to say it’s thanks to Merrion Capital that I’m allowed to do this.”

The next mission to Rio, at the end of January, will be with medical matters in mind, ensuring the Irish Olympic doctor, Seán Gaine, and the rest of his team are fully briefed on what to expect next year: part of that mission will be visiting the sailing venue at Guanabara Bay, especially after reports of the super bacteria Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC) being found in water samples at nearby Flemengo Beach.

“We know the water won’t be crystal clear, no way,” says Kilty. “The bigger problem, for sailing, is plastic sheeting, that sort of thing, which I did see in the water. If that gets caught up in the boat’s daggerboard that can literally kill the boat in the water. But ultimately it will be up to the International Sailing Federation to decide whether or not the water is safe for sailing.”

There will be two further missions to Rio before this year is out, and at least one more in 2016, before the Games begin.

Given the near unanimously successful verdict delivered on the London preparations – which resulted in Team Ireland equalling its best ever Olympic medal haul of one gold, one silver, and three bronze – Kilty has found himself with a hard act to follow.

“It is about replicating as much of the London atmosphere as possible. That won’t be easy. But we’re trying to put that same mindset, that same hunger, in place. I certainly think that Rio will deliver a very successful Games.

"For me, it's about ensuring every single athlete who gets to compete in Rio for Ireland will have the very best support that we can provide. Simple as that." Rio countdown for Irish athletes

For the majority of aspiring Irish Olympians, the mission to qualify for Rio happens this year, not so much in 2016. What is certain is there’s no such thing as an easy route, only the hard one.

London 2012 not only saw Ireland equal its record Olympic medal haul (one gold, one silver, three bronze – the same as Melbourne 1956), but it also produced a record haul of qualifiers: 66 athletes – 36 men and 30 women – from 14 different sports got to compete in London, well up on the 54 athletes, from 12 different sports, that qualified for Beijing 2008.

The expectation is for a similar number of qualifiers – and medals – in Rio. Ireland has already qualified in two events: in the three-day eventing (thanks to their sixth place finish at the World Equestrian Games in Normandy last August), and in sailing, where three boats have qualified (thanks to the duo of Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern, and individuals Annalise Murphy and Ryan Espey).

Indeed the Olympic Council of Ireland has already raised the bar for Rio, targeting 17 different sports for qualification: athletics, badminton, boxing, canoeing, clay pigeon shooting, cycling, golf, gymnastics, hockey, horse sport, judo, modern pentathlon, rowing, rugby sevens, sailing, swimming, and triathlon.

Two of those sports – golf and rugby – make their return to the Olympic programme in Rio. Unless Rory McIlroy breaks his arm he’s certain to make it, although golf doesn’t finalise its qualification until after the 2016 British Open, about five weeks before Rio.

For the rugby sevens, the IRFU has agreed to focus on women’s qualification only – although that certainly won’t be easy. Only 12 countries will make it (including hosts Brazil), and the Irish women’s team only have two opportunities, firstly at the European qualifying event next July (with only the winners qualifying), and secondly at a repechage tournament early next year, where again only the winners make it to Rio.

Indeed Ireland hasn’t qualified in a team sport for the Olympics since London 1948, when both the men’s basketball and soccer teams made it. The Irish women’s hockey team have come close on several occasions, including London, but again face an extremely tough qualifying route.

In athletics, the window for qualification will also open up in this summer, although the exact standards have yet to be agreed. Those who do make Rio will know exactly what to expect, as the timetable has now been set, and features the staging of 13 finals during the morning sessions. Indeed each of the morning sessions will include at least one final, a move aimed at increasing television exposure and ensuring maximum stadium capacity.

Boxing qualification is never easy, although the likes of Katie Taylor and company do have an extra opportunity this time as the inaugural European Games, set for Baku in June, is now classed as a qualifying tournament, with the winners of each division automatically qualifying for Rio.