OLYMPIC DREAM

Latest Carr off the production line is driving on for Paris

THERE are sports-mad households and then there’s the Carrs – and one of them, Elizabeth, could trump the lot by becoming an Olympian.

Dad Tommy (inset) famously played intercounty football for Dublin and won five Leinster championships and two National League titles with the county before becoming manager for four years.

Meanwhile, mam Mary’s father was the Galway legend Sean Purcell, a Gaelic Football great and was known as ‘The Master’.

One of Elizabeth’s hazy first memories is of her father bringing his Dublin team over to the house on a few Sunday mornings.

“He retired from playing maybe two years after I was born and maybe I have some vague memories of him managing the team, but nothing significant, apart from one or two recordings on TV,” she said.

Tommy once remarked:

“Sport was the thing in this house, so we encouraged it across the board.” The four kids listened.

Despite their GAA background, the Carr children were encouraged not just to focus on one sport or one thing in life in general, but to take a varied approach and to try their hand at everything - to develop as a whole.

“We’re all very driven,” Elizabeth said.“Individual sport is another element where all the responsibility is on yourself and that’s something we were drawn towards.

“We were given the freedom to express ourselves and test everything out and then, when there was something we found that we wanted to pursue, they were very supportive. We were just very lucky in that way.”

Simon (24) was Ireland’s top-ranked tennis player on the ATP circuit and, coincidentally, called time on his career only yesterday.

Emotions

He reached his highest ranking (512) four years ago and spoke of“many mixed emotions”in his retirement statement.

Gareth was a very talented young golfer and also played football for Westmeath for a time, while sister Vicky is currently a Westmeath footballer - she won an intermediate AllIreland with Tommy as a coach in 2021.

Elizabeth, meanwhile, won 11 national junior titles as a young athlete with Mullingar Harriers, starting off as a sprinter and hurdler before evolving into a middle and long distance runner.

Yet the 29-year-old recalls a household that wasn’t crazily competitive. “Because we’re all in different sports, that maybe helps but I’m not that close in age to my sister,Vicky, so we wouldn’t have crossed paths anyway,”she said.

“She went down the football route, I went the triathlon route. All of them think I’m crazy doing triathlon, with three sports.

“Simon and Gareth are the closest in age, there’s only a year between them and you might think there’s a competitive side to them, but it’s a very healthy competitiveness.

“They play golf together every weekend when Simon’s at home and things like that, so it was more so great to have a family that was interested in the same things. It definitely helped us, it wasn’t a hindrance.”

After struggling to make the transition to the senior grade - a process not helped by picking up a couple of injuries - Elizabeth was encouraged by her parents to ‘try a tri’.

“I went through a bad patch in my late teens and that, along with two or two injuries, probably nudged me into a multi-disciplined sport to see where I could salvage something,”he said.

“Performing at a high level, you just don’t want to give up. You want to do your younger self justice in that you think you can achieve at a high level.”

Her parents saw that she had the physical strength and work ethic to succeed as a triathlete and, while initially it didn’t stick, she really took the plunge in her final college year and she got the buzz back.

In tandem, she fell almost by accident into a career in the Irish Army, following in her dad’s footsteps.

Elizabeth has risen to the rank of captain and is thankful for the Army’s support of its elite athletes - and how it has taught her to adapt to every situation that arises.

Paris

Now Ireland’s top female triathlete, she is on a special leave from work to focus on a late bid to make Paris after most of last year was lost to a plantaris tendon injury.

That bid has seen her traverse the continents to get the qualification points she needs and has picked up vital results in Zimbabwe, Cuba and Mexico in recent months.

After competing in five races so far this year, the process is in the final straight for her - starting with a trip to Uzbekistan this weekend to compete in her first World Cup event, then another in Kazakhstan at the end of the month.

“It will really go down to the wire,” Elizabeth said.

“Nobody knows if they will qualify. The hardest thing is that you’re in the races that you pick, but there are other races on around the world.”