From Minor to Major

Ben Johnson’s now disgraced victory notwitstanding, the only proper memory of the Seoul Olympics in 1988 probably stems from the basketball. Yes, the fascination had taken hold back then. By ’92 in Barcelona, the Dream Team were a huge takeaway from the games for me, but there was also Michael Carruth and Wayne McCullough in boxing and what was realistically the emergence of Sonia O’Sullivan.

That there are a couple of Olympiads from which precious little can be recalled would seem to suggest that Irish competitors didn’t exactly set the world alight in them. O’Sullivan’s silver in Sydney aside.

On to Atlanta in 1996 and to be honest they were the first Games to which one was properly attuned. Perhaps understandable given the splash Michelle Smith-De Bruin was making in the pool. Though that was nothing compared to the effluent. run-off  which would seep out in the years which followed.

All of which meant that by the time London 2012 came around, the Olympics from an Irish perspective needed something or somebody on which to pin their hopes. Cue the beginning of the phenomenon that has become Katie Taylor. Though I doubt, even with all the totally understandable hopes there were for the Bray lady at the time, that anybody quite envisaged the transformational effect her achievements would have. Not just on boxing and indeed not just on women’s sport, it was all encompassing.

To the extent that the challenge then became the unearthing of the next big talent to take up the baton. Or lace up the gloves would be an even more apt way of putting it. On that score, we certainly didn’t have long to wait. With Kellie Harrington quite literally following Taylor up the stairway to Olympic Heaven in Tokyo.

Now, whether the following was just down to luck or whether it’s a (glorious) result of financial and infrastructural investment in Irish sport I wouldn’t consider myself qualified to judge, but, never in my lifetime can such hype and realistic expectations be recalled being attached to an Irish team going into a global event.

Without for a moment wishing to seem blasé about things, we have grown accustomed to our pugilists punching above their weight – pun entirely intended – so while obviously brilliant to see Harrington progress to a shot at a gold medal (at the time of typing) it wouldn’t or at least shouldn’t be that much of a shock. However, if anything, as was referred to in this space a few days ago, seeing Kellie perform such heroics only fuels the sense of rage and injustice at seeing how Aoife O’Rourke and Daina Moorehouse being absolutely railroaded by dodgy judges.

Thus, even with Harrington guaranteed a medal regardless of how hour final bout turns out, and even allowing for the way our other contenders in the ring were cheated, these are turning out to be an astonishingly good Games for Ireland.

One is reminded of the song Every Time We Say Goodbye. I can’t remember who sang the original version but I know Simply Red did an excellent cover thereof. And every so often, for any number of reasons, the line “How strange the change from Major to Minor” takes on a particular usefulness.

Though at the moment it’s more a case of from minor to major. That is to say, sports which would normally be regarded as minority have contributed majorly to what is on course to be the country’s most successful Olympiad.

For the record, deployment of the word ‘Minority’ doesn’t represent my view of the sports in question. After all, Baseball remains the only discipline which there is absolutely no interest here in viewing.

Rather, the adjective was put in place as reference to how the main media outlets describe the activities in question. Well, to be more accurate, how the great Lindie Naughton shines light on seldom seen greatness in her Minority Report column.

Not that – in one sense – Swimming deserves to be labelled minority given that it was the sport in which Ireland’s greatest Olympic individual feat took place. Smith-De Bruin’s three gold medals in Atlanta. As much as there are those who would like the reality to be otherwise, despite all the dung flung in her direction, the swimmer’s achievements remain on record and deserve to be acknowledged as such.

That said, Irish swimming now has a new wave of stars whose burgeoning greatness will surely cause enough of a splash to bring on another generation of powerful paddlers.

You can be sure that wherever there are kids beginning or continuing swimming lessons in the weeks and months ahead will be visuslising themselves being Daniel Wiffen or Mona McSharry or Ellen Keane for any budding Paralympians.

The same will of course be the case regarding Rhys McClenaghan and, hopefully, an influx of future gymnasts. Except even more so, because mesmeric achievements like that in a sport like gymnastics which would never have received the exposure or bolstering it has done since McClenaghan’s moments of magnificence and will continue to do so for time eternal. Kids want to be what they see. So you can expect to see a surge in the uptake of swimming and the pommel horse and rowing and athletics inspired by those under the tricolour in Paris. The thing is though, you’d be hoping the same would apply to sports where Ireland were out of luck in.

Foremost among them the 7s rugby teams. Of those that didn’t progress, they went way better than many – including this writer expected them to. Here is another area where I will have to concede to not being as well up on the small sided code as should be the case.

What is certain, however, is that with players of the ilk of Terry Kennedy, Hugo Keenan, Chay Mulllins, Beibhinn Parsons, Amy-Leigh Murphy Crowe and (maybe) Vikki Wall available to those over the respective teams, there’s no reason to think they couldn’t progress even further in time.

All told, we’re not doing too bad as it is!!