Recapping on Paris 2024 and Moving Forward.

by Perri Williams

Seven medals, four of them gold and a dispersion of medals across four sports; Rowing, Gymnastics, Swimming and Boxing. Each medal with its own special merits. Athletics often considered the mainstay of the Olympic Games, received no medals but yet the performance of the team was superb.

The tearful faces of the Irish 4x400m relay quartet as David Gillick interviewed them will be etched on our hearts. Despite their disappointment, they have made history, the first ever Irish female relay team to reach an Olympic final. Add to this, they took almost three seconds off the Irish record they set in Rome. They wanted a medal so badly, as Olympians always do. And were agonizingly close – just 0.18 seconds separated Team Ireland from Team GB. There is another Olympics left in most of these girls and there is a train of talented 400m 17-20-year-olds girls currently racing at 400m to supplement this team in future years. One thing for sure, there was not a house in Ireland that was not yelling at their TV set, willing those girls to a medal position.

Rhasidat Adeleke also finished 4^th. It was the first Olympics for the 21-year-old. While her numbing disappointment was evident in the aftermath of the race, she can medal in the future. A lot of pressure rested on her shoulders and this no doubt contributed to her disappointment. Her physical and mental strength will improve as she matures, and this will prove a catalyst for her future medal potential.

Kate O’Connor finished 14^th in the heptathlon, nine places higher than her rank. So too did Nicola Tuthill rise above her ranking, missing out on emerging from the qualifying hammer rounds by a narrow margin. O’Connor, the first Irish heptathlete to compete at Olympic level is an inspiration for young athletes to give field events a try. She praised both Nicola Tuthill and Eric Favors both field eventers, on their Olympic performances. “Heptathlon has its up’s and down’s with each event” she said. For O’Connor these Olympics are a positive. But she will need to cast aside the 13^th/14^th positioning and elevate herself towards the top ten.

Our middle-distance athletes had mixed performances. The late withdrawal by Ciara Mageean the 2024 European 1500m champion due to injury set in motion what was to be a generally tumultuous experience for the Irish. Andrew Coscoran, Cathal Doyle, Luke McCann, Sophie O’Sullivan and Sarah Healy, all sent to repechage, all but Doyle failing to make semi-finals. O’Sullivan demonstrated a gritty performance clocking a personal best and gaining the 2025 world standard in the process. Given her injuries this year, she is an athlete who performed beyond what was expected of her. Cathal Doyle who had scraped entry into to the Games, almost bottom of the allocated quota, ran the race of his life in the repechage and qualified for the semi-final. He set a new personal best of 3.33. As a good championship runner, he demonstrated perhaps the need to be a racing properly and have less focus on paced racing.

Mark English can be happy with his 800m heats. While he did bow out on the next round, he would have had to shave over a second off his personal best to move any further. It was the same for Sarah Lavin, even her personal best was just not enough to take her to the Olympic finals. Both should be happy with their performance. They are superb athletes. But they do need to ask themselves is there something they can change in order to move on with their performance level. Changes mean more sacrifices, perhaps even a change of coaches or a move to another group.

For Thomas Barr, this will be (in is own words) his last Olympics. The three-time Olympian had his best race in Rio with a fourth place in the hurdles final. He was an integral part of the mixed relay. While no doubt the team did miss the presence of Adeleke, the Irish men need to be running under 45, to make their mark on the relay. Thankfully like the girls, we do have some up and coming talented Irish 200m/400m runner. This talent needs to be nurtured and managed properly, instilling in them a high-performance attitude, to carry them beyond repechage and into finals.

Finally on the final day of the Olympic Games – Fionnuala McCormack made history by becoming a five time Olympian. Starting with the Steeplechase in 2008 and 2012 she switched to the marathon for 2016, 2000 and again in Paris. McCormack was not happy with her performance. She is thirty-nine years old and has been a consistent performer over the years. Will she make a sixth Olympics? Only she knows the response to that question.

Our Olympic performances were good, but we can be better. We must now look forward and leverage what we can to improve our standing for future games. To do this changes need to be made. On the back on our seven-medal success, the government needs to invest more into sport. Seeing how engaged the entire country was with these games, now is the right time. Putting money into sport is an investment in goodwill, happiness and overall health and wellbeing. Our RTE panel alluded to this. Increasing participation in sport has been a proven catalyst for improving health and reducing the nations medical costs. Just this evening the Taoiseach Simon Harris pledges to build upon the legacy created by Team Ireland’s Paris performances. “We are seeing the benefit of extra investment in sport. We are already seeing that pay off and we have made three significant announcements in terms of funding for sport in the last number of weeks.” These comments made by Mr Harris came as the government announced a €400 million additional investment in sport. On the back of this good news, the money needs to be allocated appropriately and the grass roots need to have some say. Swimming, athletics, gymnastics, rowing and other minority sports need to be a substantial part of this investment plan.

For the athletes themselves, they need to examine their training, their groupings. Choose training groups where they are not the best and can strive to be like the best is essential. If you want to get an Olympic medal sacrifices have to be made and changes are part of this sacrifice. For most athletes, the availability of groups to train in, facilities and appropriate coaching can often be concentrated in Dublin. The regionalization of this to a proper structure where our u18, u20s and u23s can thrive is critical to further progression. Too many of the athletes train individually. This is one critical element that has to change. We have been losing too many excellent athletes because of isolation. For athletes like Sarah Healy, she sacrificed the comforts of homelife in Dublin to moving to the UK to train under Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows. The M11 training group consisting of the 800m Olympic Champion Keely Hodgkinson, 1500m bronze medalist Georgia Bell, relay medalist Lewis Daly and nine other elite athletes. It is a group that is now home to Healy. Ciara Mageean also made a move to the UK and trains under Hellen Clitheroe out of Manchester. Her boyfriend critically made the decision to move with her, cementing his place in team Ciara. Sharlene Mawdsley on the back on her 400m eliminate from the repechage mentioned she has to look at her situation. For many the Olympics has awakened this understanding, this need. We have heard many times about how Robert Heffernan built a team around himself. He has on multiple occasions emphasized the importance of this team. Our future Irish athletes need to understand this too. In the aftermath of the games itself, Sonia, Dervla and Rob have mentioned these things, but what they have mentioned is nothing new. These idea’s have been mooted on many occasions but remain dormant of action, inviting us to yet thread unchartered paths to improvement. While much has been done, much more can be done. Our 2024 athletes are our unsung hero’s who can help lead the way.