Mum's the word

OLYMPIC MUMS:Parental support is invaluable to the success of Ireland's Olympians, yet they don't even receive tickets to see their offspring compete. KATHY SHERIDANmeets the mothers of four Irish competitors in this year's games

IT MUST BE nice to rear an Olympian. No fighting over the Xbox. No loafing in bed till midday. No hair-raising drink benders or overdosing on McDonalds or running off to join the circus. How grand would that be? Ask a mother what made her little Olympian prodigy stand out, and it distils to the same qualities: discipline, dedication, doggedness, diet. Day after relentless day. Sadly, there is no short-cut to greatness. And great athletes tend not to spring from couch potatoes.

Bridget Taylor, mother of the boxer, Katie, says her daughter was almost worryingly quiet and shy as a child, “not your typical girl”, and did what her closest brother did, whether it was running, football or boxing. Cathy MacAleavey, mother of the sailor, Annalise Murphy, describes her daughter as “incredibly single-minded”. Patricia Griffin, mother of Colin, who competes in the 50km walk race, says he “was always a bit different . . . There was no messing around.”

These mothers don’t mess around either. Whereas fathers are often deferred to as coaches/protectors/mentors, mothers tend to be left with the default position of lacrimonious cheer leader. Yet interviews with four mothers of Irish Olympic athletes reveal that three of them had serious independent involvement with the sport.

That includes Bridget Taylor, who only concedes after a little prodding that she was a boxing judge before Katie was born, in a time when the sport was overwhelmingly male and awash with prejudice. “I may have been the first woman to judge a senior national final,” she says finally. “It was different then. You’d be there with young children and you’d hear the comments. It wasn’t nice at times.”

So for all the reservations around the general commercialisation of the Olympic ideal and the irredeemably cheesy language of the ad copy, PG – makers of Ariel, Pampers and Fairy Liquid among other stuff that is traditionally the province of mammies – was tapping a productive vein when it hit on the notion of a “Thank You Mum” campaign.

It fills a vacuum left by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which does not recognise Olympians’ families at all – not even with a couple of free tickets to their child’s event. It’s a startling omission, given the profound, continuing familial influences on most athletes.

Chloe Magee, Olympic badminton player and one of a family of eight, was nurtured by her father and mother, who both played. She is coached by her brother, who is also the Irish national coach. In fact, the four youngest Magees are all involved with the sport on a virtually full-time basis.

This week, PG did what the IOC probably should be doing and opened what they call a “home from home” for athletes’ families in the vast old redbrick Vinopolis building beside London Bridge. This is equipped with big cream sofas, a viewing area to watch the games, laundry service, children’s play areas, beauty treatment rooms, a restaurant and a cool “man cave” for males who want to hide out for a while and play fussball.

Unfortunately, Audrey Magee, Chloe’s mother, won’t get to see any of it. She will be staying home with her father, who has Alzheimer’s disease and is fighting a chest infection. But Bridget Taylor is here, flying the flag, working hard at dampening the presumptions of gold enveloping her daughter. “The Olympic Games have a habit of writing their own stories,” she cautions, recalling “the Croatian girl who arrived unbeaten to the games and came second to a German girl”.

She speaks of her daughter coming home from training with soaking clothes and black eyes and of her fears that Katie’s “quietness and humility” and total dedication might see her missing out on life.

“I’ve asked her did she ever feel she was missing out. She didn’t have a 21st birthday party, for instance. She doesn’t drink. She’s so quiet. But she’s constantly telling us that she’s doing something she loves.”

Still, relationships are difficult to maintain for a serious athlete. “She’s been on a few dates. But she just can’t give it the time.”

The news for Roger Federer is that she would make an exception for him. Definitely. But until he turns up on her doorstep (complete with divorce papers), she will find her release in walking the dog, enjoying shows like Riverdance, and dropping in on her beloved grandmother. “That’s the first place she goes – she loves it, it’s a bit of normality.”

Meanwhile, Bridget does what she can to support her, whipping up juices and healthy foods, and above all, praying with her. “That’s hugely important to her. Before every major competition, she and I will normally meet in the room and pray together. She feels that all that pressure and weight that’s on her is being placed on someone else to carry. It’s all in God’s hands.”

Watching her daughter in action is never easy. “It’s stomach-churning . . . really overwhelming. I get extremely nervous,” she says. But as a mother and a boxing judge, she knows what to look for. Clean punching and good footwork. “I’d know by looking at her footwork if she’s tired.”

Emotionally, the costs and rewards for these parents is immeasurable. But physically, none of these mothers has ever done much lounging around on cream sofas either. MacAleavey’s elder daughter, Claudine Murphy, was barely a month old in 1988 when Cathy started her own successful sailing campaign for the Seoul Olympics. By the time her son Finn came along, she had raced the day before his birth and was back at sea the following Sunday, before heading to the British Nationals. Finn was just a year old when she and her husband, Con, an Olympic coach, helped set a new round-Ireland speed record, after writing their wills on the back of a cigarette packet in Crosshaven. Far from being a hindrance, childbirth acted as a spur. “The East Germans used to make their athletes have babies. I think you do more mad things after having babies.”

Patricia Griffin, who qualified for Barcelona in 1992 but had her gallop temporarily halted by pregnancy, reckons that childbirth raises a woman’s pain threshold and strengthens endurance. That will to win was consolidated by her marriage to Padraig, a teacher, who was athletics manager at the Moscow Olympics “and a great race-walking coach”, in the words of his wife.

Anyone who watches the jarringly awkward, hip-swivelling, technical and physical feat that is race-walking – front knee must be straight, one foot must be in contact with the ground at all times, and that has to be maintained for 50km – and wonder how Colin, a 6ft 2in lad from Ballinamore, Co Leitrim, took on such a hellish sport, might trace the timeline back to a four-year-old boy competing in his first sports event. After falling on the track, he looked over at his mother: “What’ll I do?” he wailed. “ ‘Just get up and finish the race,’ I told him – and he did,” says Patricia. “Colin still remembers that. The lesson is, you don’t give up. You just keep going.”

MacAleavey and Con Murphy’s involvement with the Olympics meant the three Murphy offspring, Claudine, Finn and Annalise, “grew up thinking that the Olympics was just something you did”, says their mother with a laugh. Two extremely talented, fiercely ambitious sisters, each with an eye on the Olympics, both focusing on the Laser Radial (a small, single-handed dinghy), must have created an um . . . interesting atmosphere in the house? “They were killing each other,” says MacAleavey with a hearty laugh.

So the Murphys paid an Olympic-standard coach to come from England, at a cost of €1,000, to turn the girls’ competitiveness to their advantage. Questionnaires were handed out, filled in and exchanged. The parents watched in horror. “We couldn’t see where this was going. All we could see were these A4 forms. We felt we might as well be standing in the shower tearing up euros.” But to their amazement, it worked. It was partly about timing, says MacAleavey. While Annalise pushed on with her Olympics campaign after her Leaving Certificate, Claudine knuckled down to her engineering degree and went on to do a masters in biomechanics.

“Now they’re so close,” she says. Claudine flew back this week from the Dominican Republic – where she had been kiteboarding – to support her sister. Kiteboarding is a sport that happens to be making its debut at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. “Claudine is thinking of having a go. My husband has gone grey . . .”

MacAleavey, who has spent the past year working as an apprentice boatbuilder with 86-year-old Jimmy Furey in Roscommon, arrived at the Olympic site in Weymouth with Claudine in their campervan. It’s not exactly suffused with glamour.

Most athletes live on the clippings of tin: grants (if they’ve made it to some serious podiums) and funds variously assembled from parents, friends, community and county organisations. “Badminton is the worst paying sport,” says Audrey Magee with a wry laugh. “The Irish Sports Council give Chloe a grant and it keeps her going, but she’s not going to be rich. She was runner-up in a big Russian tournament last month and that was worth about $1,200 (€990).” The Toyota dealer in Letterkenny has given her the use of a RAV4 jeep and Yonex sponsor her clothes and racquets.

Annalise Murphy has no sponsorship beyond the €5,000 donated to a few athletes by Tayto, in return for which they carry Mr Tayto around for photographs. The way Annalise puts it is that the Germans get an Audi TT each, and she gets to carry Mr Tayto. It’s an uneven world.

Patricia Griffin has cautionary words for parents with Olympic gold in their eyes. “I see a lot of pushy parents who really, really drive their children. I would see them after a race – well, you’d hear them, letting their children know they didn’t do well, ‘and why didn’t you do better?’. Where’s the enjoyment in that? It’s just a power thing for themselves,” she says.

She and Padraig will be heading to London on August 3rd, staying in an apartment organised by their son, Ronan, and armed with tickets supplied by PG. “We do appreciate that they recognise what we do to support our Olympians. You know, we’ve never got free tickets before.” And, as it happens, they celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary on the day of Colin’s big race.