The death of triathlete Caroline Kearney while training has robbed Ireland of a future Olympian, writes Ian O'Riordan
Anyone passing the Olympic Council of Ireland building in Howth in recent days may have noticed the Irish and Olympic flags flying at half mast. That normally marks the passing of a former Olympian. On this occasion it was the death of a future Olympian, after a cycling accident. It was an unprecedented move by the Olympic Council but for anyone who knew Caroline Kearney it was entirely fitting.
Her event was the triathlon, and while hardly the most traditional of Olympic sports, it probably characterises the original Olympic ideals better than most. There is precious little fame or fortune in the discipline. Taking part is what matters most. Even the well-worn Olympic motto of "citius, altius, fortius" was never intended to mean faster, higher, stronger than everybody else, but rather one's own personal achievements. That's what had driven Kearney to be the best female triathlete in Ireland.
She won her first Irish triathlon title six years ago, while still a junior. That she'd taken to the sport at such a young age was no surprise considering her mother, Ann Kearney, had been Ireland's best female triathlete for some 18 years, going right back to when the sport first started here in 1983. Ann Kearney was one of the true pioneers of the triathlon in Ireland, and will always be synonymous with the steady growth of the sport in the succeeding years.
Two years ago she died of cancer, and in some ways Irish triathlon is still recovering from that loss. In other ways her death inspired her daughter, and Caroline decided she would give the sport her absolute commitment, aiming to realise both her and her mother's dream of competing in the Olympic Games.
For most of the past year she'd been pursuing that dream with remarkable determination. Kearney went at it full-time, spending several months first in Australia, and then France to train with the professional club Montpellier. At 24, and two years away from the 2008 Games in Beijing, the difficult quest for Olympic qualification was well on target. Being away from her family in Donabate in Dublin was a huge sacrifice, and funding was desperately scarce.
The Saturday before the accident, she had finished 29th in the European championships, staged in Autun, France. Afterwards she headed south for a training spell in Nice with her club to prepare for two upcoming World Cup races in Canada, crucial to the Olympic qualification process.
That Wednesday evening she was cycling in a small group past the village of St Raphael, on the coast road near Nice. She was among a group of cyclists heading down a tree-lined avenue when, according to initial reports, a car emerged from a junction and collided with them.
Only Kearney bore the full impact. She had no chance of moving clear, and she died later in hospital.The exact details of the incident are still being investigated.
Caroline was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery on Thursday morning. Brought up in Donabate, she had completed a H. Dip at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, before deferring her career to concentrate on sport. Although she had been on the road for most of the past year, her base was still the family home. Her father Frank and her older sister Edith, herself an accomplished triathlete, have suffered an incalculable loss.
The sport in Ireland has lost not just its best female triathlete, but also a role model, inspiration, and close friend to many. And the Irish Olympic team for Beijing will now surely be one athlete short.
SUCH A TRAGEDY can happen on a daily basis in any walk of like, yet so much of Kearney's death is poignant. The Olympic Council was about to approve significant funding to help ensure she made it to Beijing, and right now there are no other female triathlete even close to qualifying.
Triathlon training or racing shouldn't be dangerous, even though any sport involving a bicycle has it risks. Still, her tragic and sudden death received scant coverage in the sports pages. If this had happened to an athlete from a major sport it would surely have been headline news.
The roads on which Kearney died would have been well known not just to herself but also to her mother. Leading physical therapist Gerard Hartmann was a close friend to Ann, and later to Caroline, and was one of the first people in Ireland to hear of her death 10 days ago. "It was such an unbelievable shock," says Hartmann, "and it still sickens me to think an athlete like Caroline could be cut down like that in her prime, especially someone living their dream.
"She was such a talent, with such great commitment, and definitely a fierce competitor. The training is unbelievable, maybe three times a day, swimming, biking and running. And she was doing it purely for the love of it.
"Triathlon might still be seen as small sport, but it's a very close community, and crosses over into cycling and marathon running," he says. "Everyone feels her loss. It's a reminder to us all that there's always a risk whenever you get on the bike, that accidents can happen, but she was just the unlucky one here, and that's such a tragedy."
In 1984 Hartmann entered what was then only the second national triathlon championships, staged in Sligo, and winning that event earned him a place in the World Championships, staged in Nice. Joining him on that trip was Ann Kearney. "Ann had come to the sport very late, in her 30s, after the marathon running boom. I spent two weeks training in Nice before the World Championships, and Ann joined me for a few spins on the bike.
"She was in a league of her own," recalls Hartmann. "She was a small, petite woman, but the guys knew her as a little demon. She won a series of Irish titles and become a huge role model for all triathletes in Ireland. What makes Caroline's death so much sadder is that she was trying to follow the success of her mother, and was killed on the same roads they both knew and often trained on."
HARTMANN HIMSELF CAUGHT the triathlon bug heavily, winning seven Irish titles, the last of which was in 1991, until a bike accident ended his athletics career.
"I'd kept in close contact with Ann over the years," he says. "And a few years back she brought Caroline down to my clinic in Limerick, just to get some general advice. I took her for a spin out the Dublin road and over the Silvermines. She had to get off the bike for a while near the top, just couldn't get up the climb, and that really upset her. I felt bad afterwards because few cyclists can make it up that climb, but it showed how dedicated Caroline was. She didn't like to be beaten like that."
Hugh McAtamney was president of Triathlon Ireland from 2002 until recently, and witnessed much of Kearney's development as a triathlete.
"She'd come across as a little shy," he says, "but she was always very friendly, with a very serious attitude towards her training. I'd frequently see her at the major competitions and it was always so obvious how dedicated and focused she was.
"I can't begin to explain what the loss means to the triathlon in Ireland. The biggest loss is to her family. They were very close, her father Frank and her sister Edith, who looked after her business, and is also our head selector. But Caroline was giving herself every chance of making it to the Olympics, despite all the difficulties that presented, and I've no doubt she would have made it to Beijing."
Sharing that view is Pat Hickey, the president of the Olympic Council of Ireland. Kearney had met him in recent weeks to finalise funding for Beijing, and Hickey was prepared to help Caroline all the way to London in 2012.
"I was immensely impressed by her," he says. "She was all you could have wished for in not just a young athlete, but any young person. Here was an athlete embarking on a dream, her whole focus to qualify for Beijing. So I still can't describe my feelings when I heard the news of the accident."