The top 25 moments in women’s sport in 2021

1. Rachael Blackmore becomes the first woman ever to win the Grand National

April 10th, Aintree, England

Eimir Blackmore (Rachael's mother)
"Because of Covid, we couldn't go to Aintree so we were at home for it. After Rachael had done so well at Cheltenham, there was obviously a good bit of media interest in her. And so on the day, we actually had a few newspaper people at the house and we were trying to make sure that everyone got their story.

“But when it came to the time of the race, I said to them, ‘We’re going to go and watch the race now.’ And they went, ‘Oh, that’s fine, we’ll just film through the window!’ So I said, ‘Um, how about no?’ In fairness, they were just looking for a good way to tell their story and everyone has a job to do. But God, no, you couldn’t be doing that.

“So in the end, it was just Charles and I in our livingroom. I’m usually a bit of chicken when it comes to watching Rachael’s races. Especially in a race like the Grand National because of the attrition and what can happen. But because we were nice and calm and it was just the two of us, I said maybe I will watch it. I was proud of myself.

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“And then, because Jett was so far ahead, there was no real need to get anxious because she wasn’t going to win. I was comfortable watching because Rachael was in mid-division with plenty of room around her. So I thought anyway – someone told me afterwards that she had taken the brave man’s line down the inside and I was going, ‘Don’t be telling me that!’

“Then she kept creeping away and getting closer to the front and all of a sudden she was there with a chance. And I was starting to go, ‘Oh my goodness. . .’ She jumped the last in front and I was going, ‘Oh my God, she’s. . .’ And Charles just stopped me and went, ‘She’s not home yet.’ And you’d be thinking then that she could step in a divot or something horrible could happen. It wasn’t until she crossed the line that we could pinch ourselves. This was dream territory.

“It’s the stuff of fairytales. It doesn’t happen. People asked me was I proud of her and of course I was. But I think what I was most proud of was the fact that she gave people something to lift them during a terrible time. Covid meant nobody could go to the Grand National, it was all such a grim time in our lives. But I think this brought a bit of joy and a bit of escape.

“Charles got talking to her very briefly afterwards. But she couldn’t talk for long. ‘Sorry I have to go, I’ve won the Grand National,” she said. The whole year has been an absolute dream.”

2. Kellie Harrington wins Olympic gold

August 8th, Tokyo, Japan

Billy Walsh (head coach, Team USA)
"The way it was at the boxing that Sunday, I think there were only four fights altogether in the arena. Two of my American guys were in finals and they were on after Kellie. So as it turned out, we were all in the same warm-up area beforehand. We had a hug before she went out and we spoke. I told her to go and do her country proud.

“There was a big screen in the warm-up area with the live feed on and sure I nearly had a crick in my neck looking over at it. I was warming up my guy for his fight and doing some pad work but I was at the same time trying to turn around and keep an eye on the TV to see how she was getting on. It was terrible. It was a nightmare.

"I have known Kellie for a long time. She came into the high-performance unit but had to go up a weight because Katie Taylor was there ahead of her. She is a typical inner-city Dub character and we have always hit it off. We trained together in a training camp in Japan in the run-up to the games. It helped both of us get better.

“In the final itself, she lost the first round. The stats say that 80 per cent of fighters who lose the first round lose the fight. And actually the stats from the Olympics have told us that in Tokyo, over 90 per cent of fighters who lost the first round lost the fight. So for her to come back from that and win the second and third rounds 5-0, 5-0 just tells you who she is.

“And top of that, she did it as the number one seed. She was the one with the target on her back all the way through the Olympics. She was the one everyone wanted as their scalp. So think about that, think about all the pressure she carried all the way along and then she found herself losing after the first round? She turned it around on the biggest day of her life and totally dominated the rest of the fight. Amazing.

“When the result came and she was called the winner, I shed a tear. I was so proud of her. When she came back in, we had a long hug and we cried. We got a photo together. I was so happy. It was so, so special.”

3. Leona Maguire is the star of Europe’s Solheim Cup victory

September 3rd-5th, Toledo, USA

Dermot Byrne (Leona's caddie)
"The thing that really stood out that weekend was the crowd. Obviously, there were no Europeans there. Having absolutely no one in your corner and no one shouting for you was weird. It was hostile stuff at times, definitely. It was a big deal to the Americans because women's golf is massive over there and this was as big as it gets.

“But I felt Leona used that to her advantage. She seemed to make the most out of that. She thrived on it. Whatever sort of vibe they were going to throw at her, she turned it into an advantage for her. She put the head down and got on with it.

“I think a lot of that is down to her GAA background. I worked for Shane Lowry for a long time and he was the same. Being the team environment, being up against it, being the underdog – all of that fed into the way she played that week.

“I only started working for Leona in June but you could see how high her standards are. She might have been a bit under the radar going into the week but you have to remember she was the world’s number one amateur for a long time. Her expectation every time she plays is to be the best.

“She wasn’t afraid of anyone. She wanted to play the best the Americans had. On that first day, she was delighted she was drawn against the Korda sisters. She made no bones about it to anyone – that’s who she wanted to play. That’s who she is. She wants to play against the best because that’s where she wants to get to.”

4. Meath beat Dublin to win their first ever senior All Ireland football title

September 5th, Croke Park

Seán Boylan (four-time All-Ireland-winning manager with Meath)
Lord Jesus, what a day! I'll never forget it. The atmosphere, the craic in the stands with neighbours, friends, the opposition and the pageantry of it all. And then Meath only go and beat Dublin, the eternal warriors.

“I love this team. I watched them beat Armagh and Cork and what struck me most about them is that they don’t seem to do panic. I think they get that from their manager, the remarkable Eamonn Murray.

“They have a resilience about them that, I think, comes from the tough times they’ve been through together, an extraordinary level of skill and an attacking game that is a joy. Watching them play with that freedom is a wonderful thing.

“Emma Duggan’s goal was brilliant, but we’ve seen her do that several times, putting the ball over the goalkeeper’s head from distance. You’d swear she was just out in her back garden.

"And Vikki Wall. Such a great player and such a leader. She couldn't believe she got the player of the year award, so humble. They're all lovely – that's not making saints out of them, now, but they're great characters.

“People from every county in Ireland watched the match, they were enthralled. It wasn’t an anti-Dublin or a pro-Meath thing, it was just the game that was in it. One of our sons was in San Francisco, another in Berlin and our daughter Doireann was in Valencia – and they were all glued to it.

“I was honoured to be invited to the banquet that night, but it was nearly 10 o’clock by the time I got home from Croke Park. Wrecked. I sat down for a few minutes before intending to change my clothes, but I woke at two o’clock in the morning. Maybe it’s my age.

“Dr Con [Murphy, the legendary doctor for the Cork footballers and hurlers] was on the phone to me after the match, he said, ‘Jesus Sean, I never thought I’d see the day that the Murphy family would all be cheering for Meath’.”

5. Rachael Blackmore is leading jockey at Cheltenham

March 16th-19th, Cheltenham, England

Ruby Walsh (leading Cheltenham jockey in history)
 "What impressed me most about Rachael at Cheltenham were the tactical improvements she made between 2020 and 2021. When Honeysuckle won in 2020, she got lucky in that she had ridden into a pocket and needed a gap to open up to get out. In 2021, she was the one who was calling the shots.

“She changed tactics on Bob Olinger early in the race and was in position going down the hill to decide where everybody else would have to go. On Sir Gerhardt, she lined up and took the race by the scruff of the neck from the start. On Quilixios, even though she wasn’t the one making the running, she dictated the tempo of the race from second place. Her decisions had an impact on how everybody else got on.

“But the bit I loved seeing was her reaction after she got beaten in the Gold Cup on A Plus Tard. She could have ridden Minella Indo but she didn’t. Rachael Blackmore left Cheltenham on a high that week but you could see there was still a pang in her stomach over not riding the Gold Cup winner.

“You have to be unbelievably competitive to be as good as she is. And in those seconds after she crossed the line, you could see that the six wins she had earlier in the week just left her. The one she hadn’t won was consuming her.

“Watch her body language as she crossed the line – her head, her shoulders, her back. She hunched down behind the horse where no one could see her facial expression. Then she composed herself and sat back up and congratulated Jack Kennedy like the professional she is. But you knew by her. That one hurt. That’s what you need to be the best.”

6. Katie-George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal win their final Paralympic gold

September 3rd, Tokyo, Japan

Mark Rohan (Double Paralympic Champion cyclist)
Earlier in the summer, I went up to give the Irish Paralympic cycling team a hand during the World Championships. I'm based in the south of Portugal and those championships were up in Estoril on the motor racing track. So I got to see Katie-George and Eve up close. Because of Covid, they hadn't raced against their main competition in a long time but I was just so impressed with where they were at.

“The got silver medals in those championships but they didn’t blame anything. they just knuckled down and worked harder and got themselves ready for Tokyo. The tandem is such a tricky bike to handle. It’s all about rhythm. It’s like rowing a boat together – if the two cyclists are stroking at a different time, they’re not maximising forward propulsion.

“So the only way to the top is hard work and preparation. It’s time in the wind tunnel. It’s sacrificing everything else in not one but two lives just so that you’re both ready and in sync when the day arrives.

“When they won gold in the time trial, they caught up to one of the British bikes that started up ahead of them and I thought it was interesting that when they caught up to them, the British bike fought them all the way to the line. It didn’t matter to the British bike for that race but they were laying down a marker, basically saying to the two girls that when it comes to the road race, we’re ready for you.

“But Even and Katie-George just went out and proved that they were the best. That road race was on a pig of a course. It was such hard riding on a tandem, with hills and corners and an oily track near the finish. But they shut all that out and made their break when it mattered over the last kilometre. I was just so thrilled for them. They were fantastic.”

7. Ellen Keane wins Paralympic gold in the SB8 100m breaststroke

August 26th, Tokyo

Laura and Eddie Keane (Ellen's parents)
Eddie: "I remember during lockdown Ellen lifting bins out the back, doing strange things with all kinds of stuff in the garden, just making sure she was doing her weights. Her determination to be ready for Tokyo, despite all the challenges in that time, was unbelievable. And she was so careful with Covid, we couldn't even give her a hug when she was leaving for Tokyo."

Laura: “We were very careful too, when family and friends arrived to watch the final, we were doing the elbow thing, punching hands, all that. But as soon as the race was won, everything went out the window.”

Eddie: “We were hugging everyone on the road – Laura and myself said if we didn’t get Covid then, we’d never get it.”

Laura: “It was magical, absolutely magical. Even though Ellen had beaten Sophie Pascoe in the heats, you’d be nervous because sometimes people hold back. But once she went slightly ahead with about 25 metres to go, I just felt that she was going to do it. And when she did . . . ah, we were just blown away.”

Eddie: “I was roaring crying, we just felt this is what she had been aiming for all her life and she deserved everything she got. Her tour around Clontarf when she got home was unbelievable: everyone came out, we saw grown men cry when she was passing them with the medal. And we were getting flowers and bottles of champagne sent to the house from local businesses, they were fantastic.”

Laura: “And we had to drink all the champagne, it would have been rude not to. We’re just very proud of everything she’s achieved in the pool, but just as proud of everything she’s achieved outside it. The way she has encouraged people, it doesn’t matter if you have a disability – you can achieve what you want to achieve through hard work and never giving up. And that’s the message she wants out there. Yeah, proud as punch.”

8. Denise O’Sullivan scores the winner for Ireland against Finland

October 26th, Helsinki, Finland

Pat Bowdren (O'Sullivan's coach at Cork's Wilton United)
"Most kids we've got in at Wilton over the years need an amount of coaching. But then, not too often, you get someone like Denise. A natural who, from day one, you know is going to be good. Very good.

“She was phenomenal, she wanted to be playing football all the time, it was her passion, and we didn’t have to do a whole lot with her. Technically, she was excellent, her engine was unreal, she just kept going, 100 per cent. And to this day she hasn’t changed, that’s the way she plays for Ireland.

“If I were to compare her with anyone, it would be with Roy Keane. Just the sheer determination, that engine, the will to win. She was such a flair player for us too, I remember her knocking great balls through in one game but the kids weren’t picking them up. So I said to her, the next ball you get, get in there yourself. She did. She scored.

“She always had a goal in her. She scored two when we won the under-14 FAI Cup in 2008 against Longford. So I wasn’t too surprised when she got that winner against Finland, in what was probably the biggest result of her Irish career. Needless to say, everyone at Wilton was proud of her that night, as we always have been, she’s tremendous.

“I have a fierce thing about the number 10 shirt, probably because of Pele, so I used to be slagging her when she got that shirt when she got on to the Irish team first. No pressure! But she deserved that shirt – she is a number 10. I was delighted when she was given it. But she’s a number eight at Courage over in America. I don’t know what that’s all about.

“I’m 72 now, but I still coach our under-11s, 12s, 13s, 15s and 17s, I never miss a match. Always hoping to find another Denise O’Sullivan.”

9. Eimear Lambe, Aifric Keogh, Fiona Murtagh and Emily Hegarty win bronze in Tokyo

July 28th, Tokyo, Japan

Claire Lambe (2016 rowing Olympian and sister of Eimear)
"We all went down to the local rowing club to watch the final, I remember when they dropped to fifth there was utter silence in the room. My parents were just holding each other's hands. I was thinking, 'Oh God, what's happening', wondering if all the expectation and pressure had gotten too much for them when they're such a young crew.

“And then when they started making their comeback, the room was erupting, everyone screaming them on. At the end, when they’d won bronze, there were definitely tears. Lots of them. Just a relief that they’d got what they worked so hard for. My parents embraced each other. It was very lovely.

“Eimear and my whole family got Covid at Christmas. Eimear probably suffered the worst and had to make a really slow, controlled comeback. I was immensely stressed for her, but she showed amazing resilience. Everything is water off a duck’s back with her, she’s very laid back and it really stood to her.

“I would have been a far more wound-up, stressy kind of athlete. I wish she had gone first so I could have learned some of her attributes. It’s often said that because I’m older, I was her inspiration in rowing, but if anything I might have nearly put her off because I so consumed by it; she saw how hard it was.

“Our parents can be cringe at times when they try and squeeze into a conversation that they have two Olympian daughters. Ah no, you can tell they’re pretty proud! After Rio, Mum put up a bunch of photos of me on the livingroom wall, my sisters called it ‘the wall of fame’. After Tokyo that wall was completely rehauled, Eimear has taken pride of place. I’m like, ‘hello?’

“It was 20 minutes after the race we finally got a video call with Eimear, she was literally getting out of the boat, you could hardly get a word in. I’m just so proud of her. But medal or not, she’ll always be the baby of the family.”

10. Katie Taylor beats Natasha Jonas in one of the toughest fights of her career

May 1st, Manchester, England

Peter Taylor (Katie's brother)
"Sometimes I think how pleasant it must be for, say, Rory McIlroy's family to watch him playing golf. There's nothing pleasant about following a family member in the ring. I can probably say that I've enjoyed very little of Katie's career – although I am, of course, immensely proud of her.

“At the best of times, I’m extraordinarily nervous watching her fight, but even more so in May – when I had to watch it on television like everyone else because no spectators were allowed at the fight. I knew she had really been struggling with insomnia for about the two weeks before. And when you don’t sleep, your testosterone levels drop, as do your strength and energy levels.

“While Katie would never rank this fight as one of her best performances, she’d put it up there as one of her proudest. When I rang her after, she said that she had felt like death, especially going into those last two rounds when the fight was probably even.

“She was completely depleted, she had to go to a very dark place, but she pulled it out from the absolute pit of her soul. You could see her punches weren’t flowing easily, it was pure mental resolve. And that’s what champions do, grind it out when things aren’t going right. Sometimes you win by flair, sometimes you just win by pure grit, and that was one of her grittiest performances.

“Katie’s mental strength really is something exceptional, she has a desire to win like nobody I’ve ever met. I’ve always known she has that capacity, what surprises me is that she continues to be able to do it. She’s been number one in boxing since she was about 17, 18 years old, we’re coming up to two decades, so to sustain that kind of resolve over that length of time is what impresses me most about her.

“Yeah, I’m immensely proud, I feel like I’ve lived two or three lives with her.”

11. Amy Hunter becomes the world’s youngest centurion

October 11th, Harare, Zimbabwe

It was Amy Hunter’s 16th birthday. Think about that. What did you do on your 16th birthday? Whatever it was, you didn’t break a world record. The youngest cricketers ever to score an international century were Mithali Raj and Shahid Afridi – Amy Hunter beat them to it by 205 and 217 days respectively. On the day, her unbeaten 121 off 127 balls was crucial to Ireland’s eight-wicket victory over Zimbabwe. Longer term, it will surely sit in the record books for decades before anyone beats it, if indeed anyone ever does.

12. Nicole Turner wins Paralympic silver

August 20th, Tokyo, Japan

Nicole Turner put everything on hold for this. School in Portarlington didn’t jive with training in Abbotstown so she put the studies to one side for a year and then Covid turned it into two years. So when she got herself to the pool deck in Tokyo, she wasn’t doing it for the fun of it. She went in the S6 category of the 50m butterfly and swam the race of her life to finish with the silver medal. “The best day of my life,” she called it. No one deserved it more.

13. Rhasidat Adeleke wins double gold at the European Under-20s

July 16th and 17th, Tallinn, Estonia

There has never been an Irish sprinter like the 19-year-old from Tallaght. Rhasidat Adeleke exploded into the European under-20 championships, winning the 100m on the Friday and blitzing the field in the 200m on the Saturday. She was the standout athlete at the championships, announcing herself as one of the continent’s brightest young stars. Two gold medals weren’t enough to get her into the mixed 4x400m relay team for Tokyo but there is doubtless more to come.

14. Orla O’Dwyer wins AFLW title with Brisbane Lions

April 17th, Adelaide

Winning a title isn’t easy. Winning a title in your second – no, third – sport surely isn’t easy. Winning a title in your third sport halfway around the world is bordering on the impossible. Winning a title in your third sport halfway around the world during Covid with all its attendant quarantines and isolations is basically impossible.

Or at least so far-fetched that it would put most people off trying. Not Orla O’Dwyer. In her second season with Brisbane, she was such a factor in their run to the title that she came second in the team voting for player of the year. The Tipperary woman is the second Irish woman to win an Aussie Rules championship and she is still only 23. Unreal.

15. Katie McCabe owns the WSL in October

October, England

Where do you want to start? Maybe at the beginning of October when she stroked home a leisurely lob from 40 yards out against Aston Villa during Arsenal’s 4-0 victory. Or the following week against Everton when she opened the scoring with a flick-up and volley.

Arsenal were the best team in England in those early weeks of the season and McCabe was their best player. She won the WSL’s Goal of the Month and Player of the Month awards. In a league bubbling with some of the world’s best players, she sits comfortably among the elite.

16. Siobhán McGrath’s goal wins it for Galway

September 12th, Dublin

Cork went into the final five minutes of the camogie final with a one-point lead, having scored the game’s only goal and kept Galway to just 0-13 at the other end. But they left their chin hanging out at just the wrong time and Galway came with the one-two punch to topple them.

It went corner-forward to corner-forward, Ailish O’Reilly streaking through and drawing the last defender before putting Siobhán McGrath in the clear. McGrath knew the only way to score was to shorten the grip and wait until the very last second. It meant she was going to get creased by Cork goalie Amy Lee, which she did. But the ball found the net too and Galway saw it out from there.

17. Ireland women’s soccer team achieve equal pay to the male team

August 30th, Dublin

In retrospect, you could argue it’s quite a small thing. Nobody is getting paid a fortune to play for Ireland and whatever the men were getting paid before, it was still a world away from the market rate most of them earn at their clubs.

So this was a symbolic thing, taking a cut in their matchday fee and getting the FAI to match it to bring the women up to parity. But symbolism matters. For the first time in history, the association has told the women’s team that they are valued to the same extent as the men are. Good.

18. Anna O’Flanagan double qualifies Ireland for the World Cup

October 24th, Pisa, Italy

We tend to take it as a given now that Ireland will qualify for the World Cup. Historically, of course, it has been anything but. This is the first time in the half-century history of the competition that Ireland will feature in back-to-back tournaments.

Throw in their first appearance at an Olympics in between and you see how world-class has become routine. O’Flanagan came through when it mattered against Wales, Ireland’s all-time leading scorer whipping home in the first and last quarters to see Ireland through. These are the good old days. Watch out for them next July.

19. Beibhinn Parsons’s try v Wales

April 10th, Cardiff

In a year of pretty unrelenting bad news on the rugby front, Beibhinn Parsons was a reminder of how much is at stake. Her tries against Wales and Italy, her incredible ability to skate around some tackles and thunder through others, her refusal to accept that Ireland should be only this good and no better – all of it deserves more than just being an afterthought in the IRFU.

Her try from inside her own half against Wales was typical of one of the best young players in the world. She has just turned 20 – if Irish rugby wastes her next decade, it will be a shameful dereliction of duty.

20. Knockmore end Carnacon’s 22-year reign

October 17th, Ballina

It is impossible to overstate the extent to which Carnacon have dominated women’s football in Mayo over the past two decades. For so many years, their opposition was beaten before they went out and they carried a run of 21 straight championships into the 2021 campaign.

But Knockmore ran at Carnacon from the bang of the gun and with Mayo star Shauna Howley outstanding, they didn’t just beat the perennial champions, they pummelled them. The final score was 1-16 to 0-7 – a monumental achievement to bring the curtain down on a stunning era.

21. Mona McSharry makes the Olympic final

July 27th, Tokyo, Japan

Only one Irish woman had ever made an Olympic final – 1996, and all that. Mona McSharry went to Tokyo as a swimmer with obvious potential and pedigree but we’ve all seen enough Olympic tales of woe play out when the pressure came on.

But by qualifying for the 100m breaststroke final on the opening day, she was the first Irish good news story from the Games. She finished eighth in the final and went on to break her own Irish record in the 200m breaststroke later in the week.

22. Shelbourne win the league on the last day

November 13th, Dublin

The drama. Defending champions Peamount were a point ahead of Shelbourne going into the last round of games and their last-day opposition was Galway United, who they’d already beaten 4-0 earlier in the campaign. All they had to do was win – and when they established an early 2-0 lead, it looked like that was that.

But out of nowhere, Galway thundered back into the game and ran in five goals without reply. Meanwhile, Shels raced out to a 3-0 lead against Wexford Youths but had to sweat it out as Kylie Murphy scored twice in the second half to get it back to 3-2. Shels held on though, for their first title since 2016.

23. TG4 broadcasts its first AFLW game

January 30th

The brilliance of TG4 is that it has always given total respect to the sports it’s covered, inviting its audience to dive in with them. With 16 Irish players playing week in, week out in the AFLW, it was a no-brainer that someone should buy up the broadcast rights and nobody was shocked when it was TG4 who took the plunge.

They showed games every Saturday for three months through the spring, culminating with Orla O’Dwyer’s Brisbane Lions winning the Grand Final in April. Another frontier breached.

24. Emma Slevin makes the All-Around Finals at the World Gymnastics Championships

October 21st, Kitakyushu, Japan

It was a history-making year for Emma Slevin. Still just 18, she is taking Irish gymnastics to places it has never been. In May, she became the first Irish woman in history to make the All-Around finals at a European Championships and by October, she was following that up with qualification for the same stage at the Worlds. She finished 19th, with her 13.600 vault the standout score.

The first thing she said when she finished was that she is keen to get back training – there’s no telling how high she can go.

25. Katherine O’Connor smashes the Irish heptathlon record

April 25th, Lana, Italy

This was the best day of 20-year-old Kate O’Connor’s career and still it was a little bittersweet. At the World Athletics Combined Events Challenge in Italy, she obliterated her own national heptathlon record by posting 6297 for a silver medal.

She had personal bests in four of the seven events that day, an incredible return. Sadly, it wasn’t enough to qualify for Tokyo, falling just 123 points short of automatic qualification. Hell of a flag to plant, though. Paris can’t come quick enough.