Doyle: Vaccinating Olympians is a tough call
Games are a ‘symbol of hope’ for star rower Doyle
IRISH rower Philip Doyle says he can see the logic in protecting elite athletes if they are to compete at the Olympic Games in Tokyo this July. The 2019 World Championship silver medallist in the men’s double is a recently qualified doctor who has worked on the front line during the pandemic and he outlined how the case for Olympic athletes getting vaccinated is a complex, emotive one. ‘I suppose you have to look at it in two ways. Number one, should athletes take preference over someone else? No, that’s obvious, everybody is where they are. But then you need to look at what defines somebody who has preference over somebody else and if you look at an athlete, an athlete needs to travel to train. That’s why we’re exempt from the 5km rule because you need to be able to travel to, essentially, your work. ‘International athletes, especially, need to travel overseas and one of the huge reasons for the second wave was a variant in Covid.
So if you have people who need to go to other countries to compete, to then come back to Ireland each time without having to go through quarantine so they continue training without having to go through all these restrictions, is it not in the public’s best interest for
PHILIP DOYLE doesn’t need a lesson in perspective or where sport fits into the broader scheme of things. In qualifying as a doctor, he spent months treating Covid patients at Ulster Hospital in Belfast.
An Olympic hopeful who was a 2019 World Championships silver medallist in the men’s double with rowing partner Ronan Byrne, he describes the Olympics in Tokyo this July as ‘a symbol of hope’, even amidst the continued speculation as to whether the Games will proceed.
‘There are so many things in the world that people draw hope from. My family wasn’t a sporting family but we always watched the Olympics. It’s that symbol of hope that things will be turning the right way.
‘Even the pubs opening the other day — it’s not very nice to sit out in the rain and have a pint but I’ve seen videos of people sitting outside, rain teeming down. People just want that sense of things coming back to normal.
‘Not that I’ll be sitting out in
“We’re trying to keep Olympic spirit alive”
the rain for a pint but I’ll be definitely in Japan, whatever form the Games take, because I feel like when people see that starting up, it gives them a sense that things are normal again.’
The 28-year-old native of Lisburn is still hurting from the weekend’s result in the European Championships at Varese in Italy, when the disruption to his preparations — through Covid and his final exams to become a doctor — saw himself and Byrne miss out on the medals. He is his own hardest critic on that score.
‘It was a very disappointing weekend. Hard to stomach, to be honest. It was the first time we’d gone to a race or regatta with expectations. In the past, we always thought we might win, this time we were expected to win, get a medal. ‘What maybe wasn’t taken into account was the fact I haven’t been here for eight months, we were only kind of building back in. We weren’t what we used to be. We had all the trials, came out as the top double again, and expected to get the job done. So it was a very humbling experience not to do the job, not to get that top three that we wanted.’ Tempering that was the news yesterday that in addition to embarking on a significant recruitment drive of 300 further jobs, Deloitte Ireland also announced that it has signed a four-year deal with Team Ireland and will be an official partner to the Olympic Federation of Ireland from now until the end of 2024. Doyle recalls the shock of last year as the impact of the pandemic unfolded.
‘The Olympics is such a huge thing, it’s only been cancelled twice for world wars and this is the first time it’s ever been postponed. Look at all the time it’s been running for and how consistent it’s been, it takes something huge to knock it off. We’re trying to keep that spirit alive as much as we can, it shows people that things will go on.
‘When the Olympics were being cancelled I was sort of thinking no it’s too big an event to be cancelled, it’s too big, it’s too big. Then the Premier League got cancelled, the NBA got cancelled and that’s when the hope was taken away. About three or four weeks beforehand I turned to my coach and said, “Look it isn’t happening, we need to start making plans here”. I think that took the hope from me at that stage and this, if the games do go ahead, will give something back with sport starting to return. People get a lot from it and it gives that sense of hope.’