Derval O’Rourke: ‘Officials flew first class but athletes did not’

Now a best-selling cookbook author (her new book The Fit Foodie is out now), Derval O’Rourke was once Ireland’s greatest sprint athlete, competing at three Olympics.

She was in a good position to observe how athletes and officials are treated differently.

“First class flights [for officials], I would have seen that,” she tells Roísín Ingle on this week’s Roísín Meets podcast.

“I just thought, there’s people who’ve won Olympic medals who aren’t sitting in first class, and they are the important people. They’re the people who represent me and represent the country.”

Did she ever complain at the time?

“People would know my opinions on a lot of things. But I don’t work in Olympic sport now,” she says.

“I’m not sure how many people who point stuff like that out end up working there. So I work in a completely different sport.

“There’s a certain amount of politics to things . . . and I’m not political at all.”

To listen to Derval talk about food, healthy living, Pat Hickey, doping and more, go to Soundcloud, iTunes, Stitcher or irishtimes.com.

Derval’s book The Fit Foodie is published by Penguin.