Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
GOALDEN GIRLS TAE BAD Tallaght man Jack gutted as he watches his Olympic medal hopes go up in smoke
Upton makes history for Irish hockey ladies
ROISIN UPTON was buzzing as she made history by scoring the first goal for an Ireland women’s hockey team in the Olympics.
Her ninth minute strike from a penalty corner was the first goal in a 2-0 win against South Africa in the Oi Stadium, with Sarah Torrans adding the second near the end of the third quarter.
It could have been more comfortable, but an opening victory was a vital step in negotiating a path to the quarter-finals. Two more wins may well be required.
“It was such a buzz before our first game, before our first Olympics,” smiled Upton (inset).
“We know how tough it’s been to get here so we haven’t thought past this game against South Africa and wanting to get off to a winning start.
“To execute that first penalty corner really settled us into the first quarter, and to come away with a clean sheet from our first Olympic game is just great.
“It’s mad. You dream of going to an Olympics, and as a centre back you don’t score too many goals. It’s a proud moment for me and my family.
“But the most important thing is that we’re scoring goals and winning games.”
Ireland are in a tough fiveteam group that includes reigning World and European champs Holland – the sides meet in Tokyo’s morning heat on Monday – as well as world number three side Germany and reigning Olympic champions Great Britain.
As ninth seeds, Ireland outranked the South Africans by seven places in the pecking order, and it showed.
In truth, Ireland should have won by more goals as a number of penalty corner chances were wasted and South African goalkeeper Phumelela Mbande was excellent in frustrating their efforts.
Naomi Carroll hit the post in the second quarter as the ball pinged around after a penalty corner was blocked.
Upton converted brilliantly from a short corner, the reward for a positive start by Ireland.
Their opponents tried to hurt Ireland on the counter-attack.
But, for the most part, Ayeisha McFerran had a stress-free night as Lena Tice was a commanding presence at the back, although she did have to produce a good save from Charne Maddocks in the early stages. Seven minutes into the third quarter, Torrans would have been kicking herself for not converting Katie Mullans’ deflected pass she had more time than she knew and rushed her shot wide when she had time to pick her spot.
But just as the South Africans were gaining in confidence, Torrans volleyed home decisively when Hannah Matthews’ shot was deflected and Ireland will be happy to have got underway with a winning start.
Regarded as having a real medal chance, the Taekwondoin from Tallaght Ireland’s firstever Olympian in the sport was closing in on a quarterfinals place when Argentinian opponent Lucas Lautaro Guzman seized the final round lead with just three seconds left and won 22-19.Woolley was completely distraught as he left the octagon in Makuhari. “I shouldn’t have even been near those circumstances. I’m better than that,” he said. Later, his slim hopes of fighting for a bronze medal in the repechage were ended when Guzman was beaten by second seed Vito Della’Aquila.
The 22-year-old Dubliner hopes to use his shock defeat as fuel for the next Games in three years’ time, but before that he must come to terms with this loss.
“I hope so, I want to be in Paris, but this has been nine years leading up to this,” Woolley lamented. “I didn’t make Rio by two points, lost here by two points.
“I don’t know what things are going to change. I’m going to push myself to the limit as always and try to get qualified, it depends on who medals here what the points will be.
“So we’ll see what happens. My coach has put a lot of things on hold so hopefully with this exposure it can get a bit better and we can stay together for three years, but I don’t know what’s happened.”
Elaborating on the personal sacrifices made to remain ultracommitted to his sport, Woolley became upset as he recalled: “The biggest one was I was at a competition in Poland and my nana died.
“I missed that. I had to fly home for a day, I had a Grand Prix to go to, and I missed the funeral.
“So it’s just little things like that, you start contem- p l a t i n g why. I put my life on hold, have missed so many important things.
“I don’t have much of a social life, I have to put everything on hold. It’s training, training, training.
“Even my coach has put everything on hold for this, and I feel like I’ve let many people down.”
He added: “It’s difficult to take. I have. I don’t care about myself, I want to win the medals for a good feeling.
“I couldn’t care less about the actual medal, I just want to actually say thank you to everybody who supported me and everything over the years because it’s been so difficult. But people have sacrificed a lot and maybe things wouldn’t be so difficult if they didn’t have to put so much into me.
“That’s the one thing that gets me after every competition. Even to have G1, like a small ranking event, and I come away with a bronze and my coach is like, ‘You could have won that’ and I’m like, ‘I’m really sorry, you could have spent those three days with your family instead of having to come here with me’.
“He’s been away now for two weeks now with me here, I know it’s a team effort and it’s amazing for him to coach here as well...”
Woolley also expressed disappointment that he didn’t represent his sport in a better light with people back home tuning in during the night.
“There were no nerves, there was no doubt, there was no excitement. I wasn’t thinking of anyone back home, nothing like that,” he said.
“I went out focused, ready, in the shape of my life. I gave a bad performance.
Nobody really knows what Taekwondo is in Ireland and I don’t fight like that, it’s not me.
“So it’s just a shame that I put in a performance that doesn’t represent the sport to its fullest potential. I really hope people understand that and hopefully watch some of my earlier fights, I promise you I’m actually pretty good.”
I gave a bad performance. I don’t fight like that, it wasn’t me out there