Investment will reap rewards at delayed Games
High performance officials insist funding will increase medal prospects for Tokyo
‘WE WEREN’T GOING TO TOKYO TO MAKE UP THE NUMBERS’
UNCERTAINTY is the word qualifying all conversations about sport. As with every other presumed fixture in our lives, it has become untethered and shunted into irrelevance. One of the few certainties to emerge from within the turbulence of the past month has, though, been a new date for the Olympics.
Even allowing for the astonishing effects the spread of Covid-19 has had on global health and economies all over the world, it is expected that by July 23, 2021, our affairs will have settled to the extent that the greatest sporting spectacle on the planet can take place.
As soon as the new date was announced over two weeks ago, it should have triggered a frenzy of planning and revised schedules, as athletes already qualified reset their training targets, while those still chasing a spot on the bill, took fresh aim at the target.
But plans must, for now, stay notional. Sport remains suspended, and until public health restrictions are lifted or relaxed, there is no possibility of wannabe Olympians getting buried in the minutiae of preparations.
Behind the curtain, though, work has begun. Liam Harbison is the director of the Sport Ireland Institute, the resource that high performance athletes increasingly rely on.
He says that the job of readjusting to a new timetable has already begun, even if the stars of the show remain in isolation.
‘The extra year gives us more time to get things put into place. We’ll just reset now. We’ll reschedule our plans, but we were pretty much ready to go.
‘We need to wait and see what the response is from international federations in terms of their own calendars, and what their qualification guides for the Games look like.
‘While we hope sport gradually starts turning itself on again, the reality is that with international sport, it could be six months, it could be more.
‘Everyone wants a scenario where this thing has abated somewhat and the remaining 43 per cent of the athlete quota to be filled for the Games, is filled on the field of play, or in the ring, rather than by decree or based on historical ranking.
‘You want people to win their spot at the Games.
‘That decision may be taken out of people’s hands, but that is still the hope. And in that scenario, you are looking at a series of qualification events next year, maybe from January to May or June.
‘But athletes will need to be training from August or September, to attack those qualifiers, so there are so many unknowns.’
Central to the plans, at long last, are athletes – one of the main benefits of a sophisticated high performance system in which the Olympic Federation of Ireland works in concert with other organisations, including the Institute and also Sport Ireland.
‘We took the decision on the first day that carding (system of funding for high performance athletes) would just roll over and athletes didn’t have to worry about it,’ says Paul McDermott, the Director of High Performance in Sport Ireland. ‘They would be secure in their funding, which was a relief for them.
‘It takes pressure off them and they can work with coaches on their programmes.
‘We’re trying to give people as much certainty as we can, and when there is more clarity around calendars and qualification processes, we can repurpose programmes and budgets, press the big green button and off we go.’
Uncertainty remains inevitable, though. Athletes obsess about the Olympics: it is the sun around which every other aspect of their lives must orbit.
However, a 12-month delay has implications: those that put off their studies for a year, or took leave from jobs, must now try and push that out for another year.
‘A number of athletes would have taken a year off their studies or off work, to concentrate on the Games,’ says Harbison.
‘They are obviously up in the air now.
“Do I take another year? Will I be allowed to take another year?”
‘So our life skills team are working with those athletes, with their employers, with their third-level institutions, to see what the best plan is on a case-by-case basis.
‘There are real challenges, but the athletes have supports to get through this, and to find the best solution for them. They have us to work on their behalf with thirdlevel institutions and employers.’
The issue of budgets is a constant priority in the business of sport. With the calamitous effects of the coronavirus pandemic already evident in the astonishing unemployment statistics, and with the cost of making the health service fit for purpose also having to be met, there is trepidation about the effects on the Irish economy.
Emergency budgets are anticipated, and the potential ramifications of this are noted elsewhere in these pages.
Harbison anticipates the delayed Games and Paralympics having a regenerative effect on a world that has been stunned into isolation – and says a celebration of that magnitude deserves Irish teams as best prepared as possible to take part.
‘The participation of the Irish teams at the Olympics and Paralympic Games will provide a huge amount of positivity to sports fans.
‘People will look forward to it. I do think if we get the Games held successfully in Japan next year, it will be a sign that as humanity we have overcome something pretty huge.
‘It will be a celebration of a global coming together of people again. So I think it’s really important that we send our teams there and we send them there with the best chance to perform and hopefully win medals at the Games.’
The conviction shared by both of these senior figures in Irish high performance sport is the potential within the Irish teams.
As a consequence of funding, better co-operation between the various interests, and the transformative effect of the Sports Campus and facilities like the Institute, no Irish teams have ever had the opportunity to be better prepared.
‘The ultimate test of a high performance system is how the teams perform at the Olympics and the Paralympics,’ says Harbison.
‘There was a confident excitement among the high performance system. The Irish athletes weren’t going to Tokyo to make up the numbers, they were going there to perform.
‘We had medal chances across a number of sports, we weren’t relying on one sport.
‘And there was a genuine determination that, you know what, we could do something really significant, despite the obvious climatic issues of heat and humidity and other factors, I still felt we had a great opportunity to perform well.
‘I don’t think another year is going to change that level of anticipation among athletes. They are used to setbacks. Mentally, they are very tough individuals anyway.’
McDermott agrees – and links this back to the issue of funding.
‘We felt that the advances of the last four, eight years were really being clearly reflected in performances.
‘We’re just very keen to continue that, and 2017, 2018, 2019 were all exceptionally successful years, and when you look at that, there is a very strong evidence base that strategic investment in Irish high performance sport was bringing in a return.
‘We’re not asking Government, commercial sponsors or the individual athletes to invest in Irish high performance sport on the back of a dream.
‘We’re doing it on the back of hard data, that we can achieve things from our base.’