Derval: Olympics must go on!
Games ‘one of the few occasions when women get equal coverage’
THE Olympic show must go on this year, according to Ireland’s Fittest Family coach Derval O’Rourke, who says it is vital for the athletes themselves but also so women and girls get to see females taking part in sports on TV.
The runner, who competed in the 2012 Olympics and won gold in the 60m hurdles at the European Indoor Championships in Moscow in 2006, says the Games are one of the few times women get equal coverage to men in sport.
‘If it doesn’t go ahead this summer, I don’t think they’ll do it until ’24 so I think it’s really important that it happens because the Winter Olympics are on next year,’ O’Rourke said.
‘Also, I feel from a female perspective the Olympics have such equal coverage and I feel really lucky that I was in a sport where I got equal coverage with my male counterparts.
‘At the moment there’s loads of rugby and soccer on the TV but there’s not a whole heap of women in sport on TV, and when you have an Olympic Games it’s just a phenomenal thing to see all these women competing.’
‘There’s not a whole heap of sportswomen on TV’
And the 39-year-old coach on Ireland’s Fittest Family, the final of which is on tonight, says watching the Olympics had a big impact on her career and should go ahead even though it will likely be dialled back with no crowds allowed.
‘I remember being 11 and watching the Olympic Games with my dad and really thinking that sport was for girls because I could see it, and from that perspective I think it’s massively important.’
She added that it was vital for athletes’ development.
‘Last year when it got delayed my opinion was that it needed to be delayed in the middle of the pandemic, but now a year later there’s a whole generation of athletes, let’s be honest, their whole life goal is to go to the Olympics and compete.
It’s not a small thing for them – these are their dreams.
‘And it’s not just them – you’ve got their coaching team, you’ve got their family, then you’ve got the communities they are from. It is a massive deal to people who are in that world.’
O’Rourke also says that in this pandemic year Ireland’s Fittest Family means even more to the competing families, as well as she and her fellow remaining coaches – Donncha O’Callaghan and Davy Fitzgerald.
With coach Anna Geary out of the competition, Davy and Donncha now have one team each, while Derval is coaching the Mileys from Westmeath and the Cullens from Wexford. ‘My whole thing is do not mess it up for them, keep things really simple and just hope you can give them a few tools to help them,’ she says.
‘It’s funny because it’s obviously a TV show but it’s a very stressful environment for them so you just try and kind of help with that. We try not to get too competitive with each other although I love trying to beat the lads – it’s all good fun.’
She adds that sometimes it’s tempting to give the competitors a helping hand. ‘It’s really frustrating because you’re so physically close to them, if they’re at a wall and struggling, I always have this massive sensation to give their a***s a big shove over the wall,’ she says. ‘And then I’m thinking there’s cameras everywhere, do not shove this person over the wall, Derval, I have to have a word with myself.’
She adds that it is a unique, albeit gruelling, experience for the families involved.
‘I do think all of them come out of it so glad for the experience because if you think of the age range, they’re late teens upwards, and at what point in your life would you spend that much time with your parents?’ she says.
‘I think particularly parents always come out of it thinking, I would never have had this time with my kids and that is lovely.
‘Before I had kids and I was coaching on the show I just didn’t appreciate it. And now that I have kids, of course I realise it’s a gorgeous thing for them to spend time together doing something like that, especially in the last 12 months because it’s not as if anyone is going on holidays.’
■ Ireland’s Fittest Family airs tonight at 6:30pm on RTÉ One.