Woman with strong roots breaks some new ground

Somewhere in the great beyond, a gentle soul will smile benignly when Sonia McGinn becomes the first Irish person to compete in the Olympic badminton championships.

Back in 1970s, a grandfather took a young girl in his arms and predicted that, one day, she would do the family proud in sport. Now, some years on, she is ready to prove, yet again, that the judgment was prophetic.

This, it ought to be said, was no ordinary grandfather - just ask those who are old enough to have seen the remarkable Freddie Moran in action.

At a time when the age of specialisation hadn't yet dawned in sport, Moran had the distinction of representing Ireland in three different disciplines - rugby, athletics and clay pigeon shooting.

In all, he won nine full rugby caps, but Adolf Hitler's truculence ensured that he never got to exploit his potential as a sprinter because of the aborted Olympic Games of 1940 and '44.

That omission in the family history is about to be addressed by the young woman from Howth. And she is not slow to appreciate the sensitivity of the occasion.

"I wasn't old enough to remember the prediction being made, but my parents assure me that it happened," she said. "To represent your country in the Olympic Games is a great honour and I'm proud to achieve something that was denied to my grandfather."

Freddie Moran might have been prouder still had he known that his granddaughter would be a ground-breaker in the long history of the Olympic movement in Ireland, stretching back to the Paris Games in 1924.

Badminton was admitted to the Olympic family only eight years ago, first as an exhibition sport at Barcelona, and then, in response to the success of that experiment, as a full discipline at Atlanta.

To McGinn, who is coached by Mary Dinan, falls the honour of ushering Irish badminton into a new, expansive arena in which the level of competition promises to take the game onto a different plane.

By popular consent, there couldn't be a worthier standard-barer. And yet, it was only by a convoluted route that she arrived at the pinnacle of the sport here.

Befitting her family background, she also tried her luck in athletics, cricket and hockey, and in golf was talented enough to represent Ireland in under-age competition.

Her aunt Therese O'Reilly is a former Irish international golfer, but, thanks to the influence of her parents Declan and Pauline and the encouragement she received in those early days in the Edros club in Howth, she eventually concentrated on badminton.

"I was only eight when I first started in the game and while I also took in a lot of other sports, badminton was always very special to me," she says. "It wasn't until two years ago that I went full-time as a professional - and then only after Irish Express cargo and Cybax had kindly agreed to sponsor me.

"Since then, it has been a hectic round of travel and competition - particularly in the last eight or 10 months. Since then, I've been virtually living out of a suitcase, leaving home on a Tuesday, getting back on Sunday and then, on Tuesday morning, starting the process all over again.

"But I'm certainly not complaining. I've been to parts of the world I could only have dreamed of and enjoyed the opportunity of competing with some the best players in my sport. That's an experience I will always cherish."

If there is one aspect of the modern Olympics which separates them from those of, say, 25 years ago, it is the standard of qualification. As the Games move more and more towards being for the elite, so the process of getting to them becomes ever more difficult. Badminton is no exception.

To earn a place in the starting line-up, McGinn had to prove herself among the top 35 players in the world. To achieve this, McGinn had to pack her travel bags almost every Monday evening in the last eight months and head for foreign climes.

They've been journeys of some distinction, too, for among those she has beaten in the unremitting urge to achieve professional fulfilment were players of the calibre of Kara Solmundson, Myia Pohar and Australian Kelly Lucas.

With admirable realism, McGinn prefers to dwell on the prospect of surviving the preliminaries rather than dreaming of mining precious metal Down Under.

"Like everybody else, I have my ambition, but, essentially my plan is take it a game at a time. If I win my first-round game, I'll start thinking about the next one and, hopefully, it will progress from there.

"Just now I'm happy to savour the excitement of going there, meeting up with the champions, and returning a better player for the experience."