Attract them? We can't keep our own

THE LAST piece of big news from the governmental group that had been set up specifically to draw foreign teams into Ireland prior to London 2012 was when Olympic Council of Ireland president Pat Hickey decided it was going nowhere.

Hickey left, metaphorically slamming the door, and labelled the co-ordinating group a “toothless talking shop” adding that Ireland had failed to entice national teams to these shores with proper facilities. He also insisted that the country had missed out “on a huge legacy”.

Hickey could see, if not where the committee was going, where the national teams of other competing countries were going and it wasn’t to Ireland. Following the mini-rant Government minister Ciaran Cannon stood in for Michael Ring during a Dáil session last November.

“Mr Ring’s department are working on attracting other teams to Ireland and has prepared a CD which details all the facilities available and that has been distributed to all our embassies around the world as well as federations,” said Cannon.

Fianna Fáil spokesman on sport Timmy Dooley wasn’t impressed and referred to county councils putting out CDs to promote their counties. Small change, parochial, he suggested. Dooley was also exercised about Hickey’s departing remarks in his letter of resignation.

“He (Hickey) referred to the committee as a toothless talking shop and in essence nothing had been achieved over the past two years. In my view, that’s a damning indictment. We really had high hopes when former minister John O’Donoghue, established this group . . . we have failed miserably to capitalise on that.”

Since then Ring has been giving aspirational speeches about the mountains of money Government expect to rake in from tourism. On that he sounds like O’Donoghue with his “golden opportunity” comments when London was awarded the Olympics and Ireland was sitting pretty on British coat tails. There is no talk now of the debacle of attracting virtually nothing or the abject failure to make the country even modestly attractive to other Olympic nations.

But now as the London shadow is falling on the Irish athletes, even they have been leaving Dodge in the run in to the Games.

While nearly all of the athletics team remains in Ireland with some competing in the Cork City Sports last night, 5000m runner, Alistair Cragg has remained in the USA. The entire boxing team of five males and Katie Taylor has gone to Italy to set up a pre-Olympic camp in Assisi, where they will be joined by Azerbaijan, Italy and a team from Ukraine. Billy Walsh’s Olympians will fly directly from Italy to London.

The canoeists are abroad too. Why, because Ireland does not have anything that resembles the Olympic course in London, or for that matter any Olympic course, so the athletes must continually train abroad.

Hannah Craig and Eoin Rheinisch are in London now and have been training at the Olympic site since July 16th. They are allocated two hours a day. Andrezej Jezierski could have trained in Inniscarra, Cork, where Sanita Puspure is currently doing her rowing preparation. But he has travelled to Poland for warm weather training on Lake Malta in Poznan, his original home town.

Canoeing would have been a difficult sell abroad by the governmental group. Rheinisch, who came fourth in the Beijing Olympics, explained some weeks ago in his column in this paper that he has to spend 200 days a year out of the country.

Irish gymnast Kieran Behan is based in London, while Belfast judo qualifier Lisa Kearney bases herself in Scotland, where facilities suit her better.

The sailing team have been training in Weymouth for some time, although they come and go. But the decision of the Irish Sailing Association was that the best possible chance to win a first sailing medal in 32 years was to leave Ireland. Almost all their recent preparation has been at the English venue.

“They are back and forth which, is one of the strengths of being close,” said ISA performance director James O’Callaghan. “When we went to China we were there and that was it. We were in situ for a month.”

In swimming, Gráinne Murphy did travel abroad in June but has returned to swim in Limerick, where she is permanently based throughout the year. Barry Murphy is in Spain with his American coach Mike Bottom, while Melanie Nocher and Sycerika McMahon have left to prepare in Italy with high performance director Peter Banks.

In triathlon, Aileen Morrison is training at high altitude in Sierra Nevada in Spain with fellow elite athlete Conor Murphy, the development duo of Noel Collins and Niamh O’Sullivan and elite cyclists Caroline Ryan and David O’Loughlin.

Why there? “The facility is a hive of activity with a host of South American nations using it for their final Olympic preparations,” said Morrison. “A state of the art 50m pool with underwater viewing area allows us to video the athletes and analyse technique.

“There is also some amazing biking and running routes which include a 31 kilometre cycle from the city of Granada up to Sierra Nevada at 2,350 metres above sea level and a 10k run from Sierra Nevada up to the military base at over 2,500 metres.” That’s why.

Gavin Noble, who is coming back from injury, decided to remain in Limerick where he training in the ‘Altitude House’.

In cycling Nicolas Roche and Daniel Martin are currently competing in the final stages of the Tour de France, while the third road race qualifier, David McCann, is sucking up the conditions in the Sierra Nevada. Martyn Irvine, Ireland’s only indoor track cyclist, recently finished a 100k race in Italy and is heading to Spain, where there is a velodrome in Palma.

Everyone wishes Ring luck with the tourism aspect of the moribund big Olympic idea. But when it comes to the Olympic Games most international athletes as well as most Irish athletes, have decided that facilities in other countries are almost always better than they are here. Hickey knew that a long time ago.

WHERE HAVE IRELAND’S ATHLETES GONE?

Athletics: Mostly in Ireland with Alaistair Cragg in USA

Boxing: All in Italy

Canoeing: Two in UK, one in Poland

Gymnastics: London

Judo: Scotland

Cycling: France and Spain

Rowing: Cork

Sailing: Weymouth, England

Triathlon: Spain, Limerick

Swimming: Two in Spain, one in Italy and one in Limerick

Badminton: Dublin