22 athletes awarded top grant

SPORTS FUNDING: HIGH PERFORMANCE GRANTSTHIS ONE is a hoary old chestnut. Money and grants and who gets how big a slice of the Irish Sports Council (ISC) pie. Yesterday, at the launch of the High Performance package by the Council the regular anomalies were, once again, apparent and there was probably room to quibble. But no one has ever claimed this was an exact science.

There’s no perfect way to disburse grant money, which grew annually from 2001 to 2006, peaked at 2007 and has incrementally fallen or remained static since then, except for a 2011 spike. This year the allocation to elite athletes has just about stayed the same at €6,680,500, down from €6,861,000 in 2011.

But once again most of the big names in the 19 sports included in the high-end funding were again at the top of the lists. There were other athletes, whose profiles have risen over the last year, that languish below the top award of €40,000 and others, whose achievements would suggest they should be higher, but are, in fact, lower than athletes who have never won at the top level.

It’s a complex system and rewards potential as much as medals, which means there is an element of betting on the future as well as continuing to reward tried and trusted winners. The criteria for allocations in 2012 were the same for 2011, although, the ISC promises to have the system overhauled for next year, when there will be 5 per cent less money.

“There is a clear an unambiguous message of performance. It’s crude,” said the ISC’s Finbarr Kirwan before adding: “It’s a black and white business.”

In athletics European Cross-Country champion Fionnuala Britton, who has qualified for London 2012, falls into the World Class category. An athlete with a great year behind her earns €20,000 less than David Gillick, who takes away €40,000 and has yet to qualify for the Olympics.

Gillick has not had a great season but the twice European Indoor champion has the stripes to command the top podium award allocation, whereas London qualified highjumper Deirdre Ryan does not.

In boxing Joe Ward, who beat Olympic silver medallist from Beijing Kenny Egan for the second time in last month’s National Senior Championships, moves up to the podium award of 40,000.

Like athlete Britton, the 18-year-old Ward won the European senior title, but unlike her he has yet to qualify for this year’s Olympic Games, yet he draws €20,000 more.

Ward’s potential and youth has him marked out as one of the finest talents and yesterday Irish team coach Billy Walsh said he could not recall a single fight in which Egan was beaten by a margin of 19 points, the margin of Ward’s success last week. Try converting that to a track time.

Egan drops to the podium €30,000 allocation, while five other boxers – Darren O’Neill, Ray Moylette, Paddy Barnes, John Joe Nevin and Katie Taylor are also on the top €40,000 allocation. Again Belfast’s Michael Conlan, who has his ticket to the London Games booked, is on the third tier of funding at €20,000.

In all 22 athletes take the top grant; four of them from track and field; three cyclists; canoeist Eoin Rheinisch and clay pigeon shooter Derek Burnett, who have both yet to qualify; and three sailors and swimmer Gráinne Murphy, who have.

Three Paralympic athletes were in that list, including Derry sprinter Jason Smyth, who hopes to qualify for both the Olympics and Paralympics this year.

“We have set a target of eight or nine finalists and we are sticking with that target,” said John Treacy attempting to convert those millions into medals.

“Obviously if we come away with two or three medals we will be doing extremely well.” On that nobody would quibble.

List of elite grants – irishtimes.com