There are certain observations, often long-held, which you can’t publicly utter until you’ve stepped away from the situation to which they are related. Now read on…
Believe me, by the time my 11th season as P.R.O. and/or Asst. P.R.O. of St Peter’s GAA Club in Dunboyne that there were a cohort – God knows how many in number – who wouldn’t exactly have had wet eyes at the notion of my departure. Their (wrong) line of thought being that yours truly was anti hurling.
Ballderdash, of course. The real, and well documented, reason I retreated from watching the small ball matches in the flesh was because, due to failing eyesight, I may as well have been looking for white blackbirds as trying to follow the sliotar in flight. If there was any doubt about such being the case, being in situ at Pairc Tailteann for Meath’s NHL clash with Tyrone in the spring of 2023 removed it.
One wouldn’t have needed the predictive abilities of Mystic Meg to identify who the culprits behind the push for change were, but, while it was resolved put a chapter in the book of revelations once my time in the roles were done, but at this stage they are not worth consumption of any of a body’s oxygen supply. They can go with the dairy washings in the slurry reception pit.
However, to read the musings of the great Irish athlete Tom Barr in the wake of the most recent Olympic Games in France was to get the sense of someone getting a load off their chest before exiting the stage they graced with such class and familiarity for so long.
On the subject of Rhasidat Adeleke being done out of a medal in the 400m by a Bahranian athlete even though that nation had been banned by World Athletics from 12 of their events already this year. Yet the International Olympic Committee allowed them send 10 athletes to Paris. One of which ended up depriving Adeleke of a bronze medal.
Sadly, the IOC – or the Olympic Council of Ireland for that matter – marching to the beat of their own drum is nothing new. As best evidenced by the bungling ineptitude and incompetence of P(r)at Hickey, who ran the OCI as if it was his own pet project. Still, the experienced Waterford hurdler and sprinter echoed what most of us were thinking when he said “There should be harsher sanctions on governing bodies who are (caught) because the athletes, at the end of the day, are going to do what they’re told to do in a lot of certain respects,” said Barr. “When you hear of that kind of stuff, where it’s state-sponsored, where it’s by a national governing body, I could never in my wildest dreams imagine our governing body ever suggesting anything along those lines. It’s so far-fetched from our reality”.
“That’s the bitter pill to swallow for Irish athletics,” said Barr. “Telling you you can’t run the World [Athletics] Series. A lot of athletes will end up missing half their season with injury and still make it back for the Olympics, it’s no different to that. That’s not fair on the athletes that are going about it the right way.”
Every syllable one of truth, alas this is the IOC we’re talking about here. Where they specialise in the training of flying pigs and giving cows Bank Holiday Mondays off.
Leave a Reply