Setting the pace for a bright future in sport

In the modern world of digital entertainment, there are fewer and fewer ‘TV moments’.

It’s no longer the case that the whole country is watching the big interview on The Late Late Show on a Friday night and talking about it all day Saturday; the recent general election campaign did provide a few clips that everybody saw but they were shared through various channels and seen at different times.

By and large, it is live sport that now seems to feature the majority of those communal experiences that people consume at the same time, and the Olympic Games sit near the top of that pyramid.

This year’s games in Paris proved to be memorable from an Irish point of view as there was a record medal haul – and yet you could argue that the most emotional moment came after a race that didn’t yield one.

The women’s 4x400m relay team of Sophie Becker, Rhasidat Adeleke, Phil Healy and Sharlene Mawdsley ran faster than they or any previous Irish quartet had over the distance.

At the 2022 European Athletics Championships in Munich, Ireland finished sixth in the women’s 4x400m relay, logging a time of 3:26.63 – a shade slower than the national record they had set in their semi-final. The team was once again Sophie Becker, Rhasidat Adeleke, Phil Healy and Sharlene Mawdsley.

Two years later, in June of this year, the same team – along with Lauren Cadden, filling in for Adeleke in the heats – were continental runners-up, running a time of 3:22.71, just edged by a highly-rated Netherlands side that would go on to claim Olympic silver.

By Paris in August, Ireland were logging a time of 3:19.90 – unfortunately, that was 18 hundredths of a second slower than the third-placed United Kingdom.

The Olympics are, to paraphrase a Tweet at the time, great for making you feel bad about being the fourth-best in the world at something.

Still, the team, when interviewed by David Gillick, were more focused on how they had done their best when it mattered most. They cried, tears of pride as much as sadness, and we cried along with them.

And as Becker put it in a recent radio appearance, it was better to come fourth than fifth and the quest is to ensure that Ireland bring home some track and field medals from the next Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.

Helping to drive that effort is Athletics Ireland CEO Hamish Adams.

Unsurprisingly for a New Zealand native, it was rugby that initially brought him here, working the players’ union IRUPA, before becoming CEO of Rowing Ireland and then pivoting to his current role.

Obviously, the aim is onwards and upwards at the highest level but there is also an Olympic trickle-down effect to manage.

“You’re always looking to be better, every day and every week and every year,” Adams says.

“Certainly, we’re still growing – our membership is at a record high again; we’ve just hit 70,000, which is the first time we’ve ever done that.

“Our Olympians are fantastic role models and certainly delivered for us. Obviously, we were disappointed that we were so close to a medal without bringing one home but the challenge is that there are really only two global sports – soccer and athletics.

“There are over 200 countries competing at the Olympics – it’s tough to win medals, that’s the nature of it.

“Athletics is all about personal bests and breaking records and the girls in the 4x400m relay ran an Irish record. They couldn’t have done much more on the biggest stage.”

Success

Improving on success isn’t something that is funded by goodwill, though. Like every other governing body, Athletics Ireland would like more money to work with but Adams appreciates that the pie is finite.

“What I would say is that all sports in Ireland are under-resourced,” he says.

“We’re still playing catch-up, really, on many of our international competitors, in terms of facilities, coaching and investment and that’s the reality of it.

“We are playing catch-up – and we’re doing it rapidly – but we’re certainly coming from behind.

“We know that we can deliver more with more investment and, I’ll be honest, I think that it’s also important to note that you have to control your own destiny as well – a lot.

“We’d be best in class in terms of our commercial footprint and, as an Olympic sport, the amount of money that we self-generate.

“Next year, 50% of our funding will come from government but we generate the other 50%. There aren’t many sports that operate at that level either and I think that that’s important to note.”

There certainly won’t be any resting on laurels – not least because the schedule simply doesn’t allow it. There’s always another race or another major championship on the horizon.

“We have the World Championships in Tokyo in September,” Adams says. “We’ll be looking to send a strong team out there.

“We have the European Indoor Championships in March, so hopefully we’ll see a good team performance there, and really, athletics never stops.

“We’re in the middle of the cross-country season right now and early in the new year we go straight into the indoor season; and then we’re into the track-and-field season.

“It’s probably also unique from that perspective in that we never have an off-season.”