Olympics 2012

[taz]

They've made their choice though.

What will all those down here in the south do (who have slavishly tried to "claim" him), when McIlroy declares he will play for the 2016 Team GB golf team ?

He's an Ulsterman its up to him.Its a big sport it will be like Murray in the Tennis..

(BUT better facilities in the smaller sports like the rowers competing for her Majesty)

[garryowen2323]

He's an Ulsterman its up to him.Its a big sport it will be like Murray in the Tennis..

(BUT better facilities in the smaller sports like the rowers competing for her Majesty)

Exactly it's his choice to choose whichever nation he wants to compete for. I'm not going to hold it against him either way. I'd obviously prefer himself and/or McDowell to represent Ireland as it would give us a better shot at winning a medal than say Shane Lowry (not a dig at Shane just first man I thought of!) but it's 100% his choice and going to respect whatever he decides.

[cornerboy]

They've made their choice though.

What will all those down here in the south do (who have slavishly tried to "claim" him), when McIlroy declares he will play for the 2016 Team GB golf team ?

Whichever he chooses he will remain an Irish golfer......

[busby]

Whichever he chooses he will remain an Irish golfer......

Much the way George Best was an Irish footballer. He had nothing to do with my country though, and neither does McIlroy, and he's perfectly entitled to that. The problem with this rather embarrassing 'claiming' of him is that its going to brew up a severe kick out against him when he does compete for team GB, despite McIlroy having done nothing out of the way, and certainly nothing to suggest he has any affinity with 'south'.

If people from Northern Ireland like Barnes, Conlon, Gibson, McClean 'claim' for this country (and when i say country i mean state, not island) as they are entitled to, lets welcome them and celebrate them. If guys like McIlroy do not, then i personally would have no affinity towards them, not that i would have an ounce of disdain for them either.

If might be just me, but i've noticed a growing sense of nationalism in Northern Ireland, and by that i mean that people see themselves as Northern Ireland first and foremost, and i think the McIlory falls into the category a bit. It may be the best way forward for the place.

[isola ciarrai]

Those lads who rowed with GB are well known in the irish rowing scene. They wouldn't have gotten anywhere if they'd thrown their lot in with Ireland as the set up just isn't there.

Same reason Sean O'Neill from Co Limerick rows for the NZ heavyweight 4s and is staying there until finished rowing. It is taken seriously out there from the aspect of facilities and organisation. Stories of Jahrling tearing his hair out at the 'facilities' on the lake here are amusing in their own way, but shows an poor official attitude, and we still did well enough - imagine how we would have done with first class treatment?

[The Last Stand]

, have some Polish friends who have just had a baby and they do posture exercises with the infant . This apparently is very common in Eastern Europe . Agree with a lot of the other suggestions above .

Hope they have good ventilation.

[scotscor]

Much the way George Best was an Irish footballer. He had nothing to do with my country though, and neither does McIlroy, and he's perfectly entitled to that. The problem with this rather embarrassing 'claiming' of him is that its going to brew up a severe kick out against him when he does compete for team GB, despite McIlroy having done nothing out of the way, and certainly nothing to suggest he has any affinity with 'south'.

If people from Northern Ireland like Barnes, Conlon, Gibson, McClean 'claim' for this country (and when i say country i mean state, not island) as they are entitled to, lets welcome them and celebrate them. If guys like McIlroy do not, then i personally would have no affinity towards them, not that i would have an ounce of disdain for them either.

If might be just me, but i've noticed a growing sense of nationalism in Northern Ireland, and by that i mean that people see themselves as Northern Ireland first and foremost, and i think the McIlory falls into the category a bit. It may be the best way forward for the place.

I was once at a football match with a belfast mate of mine and a crowd of his friends, I said something about the North. One of the ladies present took great exception to that: 'We are Northern Ireland, we are a country in our own right we are not north of anywhere'; this was out of nothing.

[Balla Boy]

I was once at a football match with a belfast mate of mine and a crowd of his friends, I said something about the North. One of the ladies present took great exception to that: 'We are Northern Ireland, we are a country in our own right we are not north of anywhere'; this was out of nothing.

**** at geography though.

[mr chips]

I was once at a football match with a belfast mate of mine and a crowd of his friends, I said something about the North. One of the ladies present took great exception to that: 'We are Northern Ireland, we are a country in our own right we are not north of anywhere'; this was out of nothing.

That was your mistake right there.

[Grandpasimpson]

Much the way George Best was an Irish footballer. He had nothing to do with my country though, and neither does McIlroy, and he's perfectly entitled to that. The problem with this rather embarrassing 'claiming' of him is that its going to brew up a severe kick out against him when he does compete for team GB, despite McIlroy having done nothing out of the way, and certainly nothing to suggest he has any affinity with 'south'.

If people from Northern Ireland like Barnes, Conlon, Gibson, McClean 'claim' for this country (and when i say country i mean state, not island) as they are entitled to, lets welcome them and celebrate them. If guys like McIlroy do not, then i personally would have no affinity towards them, not that i would have an ounce of disdain for them either.

If might be just me, but i've noticed a growing sense of nationalism in Northern Ireland, and by that i mean that people see themselves as Northern Ireland first and foremost, and i think the McIlory falls into the category a bit. It may be the best way forward for the place.

It really doesnt bother me who he declares for, he's a yound lad from only a few miles up the road and on this little island of ours he could be considered local regardless of his affiliations.

[lahinch_lass]

If nothing else these olympics proved that the irish are capable of supporting the british ! There were plenty of irish people cheering on british competitors in London particularly in events where we had none of our own. And they reciprocated in kind.

the very last finisher in the 50k race walk was a member of Team GB, and all the irish supporters stayed on to cheer him to the finish just as we'd cheered on our own competitors.

[99_oK?]

.........
As for improving Olympic performance 99..............Not having the funding to target sports like we did with boxing and GB did with cycling is a problem alright. When I talk about improving on performance I don't necessarily mean overall medal totals. I appreciate the boxers are as good as we'll probably ever be right now. But other sports need to up their game. Especially athletics - Totally obvious, but not the athletes fault.

We may not have the athletes to be winning medals and beating the Africans, Americans, Carribbean nations but we should be making it to finals, producing PBs, and most importantly, sending the right athletes to produce our best results. Sending injured athletes who got A standard times a year previous is just nonsense - Agree. We should use the national trials just like America and Jamaica and send the winners of those races - too simplistic for us, as a FS could result in a potential medallist being left at home; see also 800m comment below. If they can't produce it under the pressure of national trials then they most likely won't produce it on the Olympic stage either.

And Rob's 4th being as good as it gets..........I hope not. All on the shoulders of young Kate Veale now!!

Athletics Ireland looked promising about 10 years ago (soon after it's formation), but it has gone down the tubes in the past 5 years. The problem is a clique who held sway over a large part of one of the previous organisations. It came to a head when they dumped (illegally as it turned out) their chief executive (spending more in legal costs than in promoting athletics at the time....) who was working towards transparency and reform. Until that changes I can't see any real progress or even hope. And I can't see those folks going anywhere.

It's not true that we don't have the talent, just that we can't seem to allow them to progress. We have some wonderful world-class coaches too, but they're either working with other countries or working locally and with some success it must be said. We hired a performance director a couple of years ago but he's not in contact with any of the groups working to improve guys and doesn't seem to understand the concept of performance (he publicly derided Derval just before London; her response wasn't printable, but it just shows he's another buffoon. A few years ago we won the European U23 Cross-Country for the first ever time. Not one of those guys is now competing at elite level. A few weeks ago a young Letterkenny lad finished within a foot of the medals in the Wolrd Junior Championships 800m; 2 weeks later 2 of those medallists were also Olympic medallists in the greatest 800m ever run; we have a lad who doesn't look out of place with those lads, but we don't send him...! 5 years ago we had one of the most promising young female hammer throwers in the world (finished 6th in the WC in '07). Those of her age and standard back then filled the top 6 places in London. A frustrated Eileen gave up a few years ago...... I could go on.

But don't just blame AAI; they tried to rectify their blunder in the 4x400 selection by naming Joanna Mills in a revised squad. OCI reversed that, and told AAI that squads were not for changing. GB dropped a big name for a young runner in the women's marathon. We should have done same in a few events - we didn't.

It's not very promising or hopeful for athletics, but other sports are way off the mark too. No wonder a good number of Irish athletes are competing for others.

[greenback]

i am not up to speed with the politics of athletics ireland at present but in the past athletes never counted for much all the way back to jim hogan,,,hession said recently that there was too much emphasis on A/B standards and not enough on form and he would have no trouble racing off against colvert for the 200 m spot..it was fair of him to say it as i think colvert was the better 200 man this season even though he did't get the standard...it's hard to know where athletics is going at the moment the admin is a mom and pop operation ..mark english is a real talent seen him as a kid running one could see he had something special,galen rupp has proven that with the right approach the "white" guys can be competitive again..we could do very well in the field events but and a very big but most of the big guys are involved in rugby,they don't have this problem in eastern europe or the nordic countries

[garryowen2323]

Athletics Ireland looked promising about 10 years ago (soon after it's formation), but it has gone down the tubes in the past 5 years. The problem is a clique who held sway over a large part of one of the previous organisations. It came to a head when they dumped (illegally as it turned out) their chief executive (spending more in legal costs than in promoting athletics at the time....) who was working towards transparency and reform. Until that changes I can't see any real progress or even hope. And I can't see those folks going anywhere.

It's not true that we don't have the talent, just that we can't seem to allow them to progress. We have some wonderful world-class coaches too, but they're either working with other countries or working locally and with some success it must be said. We hired a performance director a couple of years ago but he's not in contact with any of the groups working to improve guys and doesn't seem to understand the concept of performance (he publicly derided Derval just before London; her response wasn't printable, but it just shows he's another buffoon. A few years ago we won the European U23 Cross-Country for the first ever time. Not one of those guys is now competing at elite level. A few weeks ago a young Letterkenny lad finished within a foot of the medals in the Wolrd Junior Championships 800m; 2 weeks later 2 of those medallists were also Olympic medallists in the greatest 800m ever run; we have a lad who doesn't look out of place with those lads, but we don't send him...! 5 years ago we had one of the most promising young female hammer throwers in the world (finished 6th in the WC in '07). Those of her age and standard back then filled the top 6 places in London. A frustrated Eileen gave up a few years ago...... I could go on.

But don't just blame AAI; they tried to rectify their blunder in the 4x400 selection by naming Joanna Mills in a revised squad. OCI reversed that, and told AAI that squads were not for changing. GB dropped a big name for a young runner in the women's marathon. We should have done same in a few events - we didn't.

It's not very promising or hopeful for athletics, but other sports are way off the mark too. No wonder a good number of Irish athletes are competing for others.

Its not often I say this but...........I agree 100% with all of that! Nothing frustrates me more than talent not being maximised. In any sport.

[beir bua]

Same reason Sean O'Neill from Co Limerick rows for the NZ heavyweight 4s and is staying there until finished rowing. It is taken seriously out there from the aspect of facilities and organisation. Stories of Jahrling tearing his hair out at the 'facilities' on the lake here are amusing in their own way, but shows an poor official attitude, and we still did well enough - imagine how we would have done with first class treatment?

Sean O'Neill's story is an interesting one, and telling of the differences between sport in Ireland and New Zealand, a country of similar size and population. He went to NZ in the first place to enhance his prospects playing rugby, but before long he had the opportunity to give rowing a go and in the end has forged a great career as a rower there. How did a guy with great talent for rowing not discover the sport before going overseas, even though he lived only a few miles from some of the better rowing clubs in Ireland? It seems that in Ireland we get locked into a particular sport at an early age, and don't get the opportunities to try others, some of which we might be very good at, but perhaps in other countries there is a more open approach sport.

[99_oK?]

Sean O'Neill's story is an interesting one, and telling of the differences between sport in Ireland and New Zealand, a country of similar size and population. He went to NZ in the first place to enhance his prospects playing rugby, but before long he had the opportunity to give rowing a go and in the end has forged a great career as a rower there. How did a guy with great talent for rowing not discover the sport before going overseas, even though he lived only a few miles from some of the better rowing clubs in Ireland? It seems that in Ireland we get locked into a particular sport at an early age, and don't get the opportunities to try others, some of which we might be very good at, but perhaps in other countries there is a more open approach sport.

Sean O'Neill's is indeed an interesting story. You are correct in saying he went to NZ to further his budding rugby career (got a scol. to one their better schools). That he ended up a rower was a bit accidental. Anyway he returned to Ireland and rowed both club and for Ireland. He was stroke in the Irish boat that finished in the top 10 in the 4s in Beijing. They were coached by Harald Jahrling but all that was disbanded after the '08 games, hence his move to NZ. Didn't medal this time either, but fairly decent performance.

We have plenty of rowing talent in this country, but we rarely take 'em to the top level. Part of it is lack of tradition (small pockets we all know of), and lack of funding and facilities play a big part also. Our under-age do well, but a lot drop out when they reach senior age. There is a gap that takes some time to bridge; we don't have the infrastructure to keep 'em going for those 2 or 3 years. Pity.

Here's what the Leader had to say when Sean was selected for NZ this time: http://www.limerickleader.ie/sport/r...land-1-3600333

[Point]

Sean O'Neill's story is an interesting one, and telling of the differences between sport in Ireland and New Zealand, a country of similar size and population. He went to NZ in the first place to enhance his prospects playing rugby, but before long he had the opportunity to give rowing a go and in the end has forged a great career as a rower there. How did a guy with great talent for rowing not discover the sport before going overseas, even though he lived only a few miles from some of the better rowing clubs in Ireland? It seems that in Ireland we get locked into a particular sport at an early age, and don't get the opportunities to try others, some of which we might be very good at, but perhaps in other countries there is a more open approach sport.

Maybe the sport doesn't go out looking for potential, other than those who pitch up at their door ? During the Olympics, one of the GB women rower medallists mentioned that she responded to an ad from Steve Redgrave inviting women over 5 foot 11 to give rowing a try.

[the plastic paddy]

Maybe the sport doesn't go out looking for potential, other than those who pitch up at their door ? During the Olympics, one of the GB women rower medallists mentioned that she responded to an ad from Steve Redgrave inviting women over 5 foot 11 to give rowing a try.

Not just rowing that benefited from the tall people campaign.

[beir bua]

Maybe the sport doesn't go out looking for potential, other than those who pitch up at their door ? During the Olympics, one of the GB women rower medallists mentioned that she responded to an ad from Steve Redgrave inviting women over 5 foot 11 to give rowing a try.

That's a big part of it. I reckon it applies to most sports, although some will be better than others at idetifying talent.

[AmandaValois]

Got an email this morning to indicate I got tickets for 4 of the sessions I applied for.
All of the race-walk sessions, and 1 of the showjumping sessions. Didn't get anything from the athletics, canoe-slalom or swimming [img]smileys/sad.gif[/img]

At least the dates of the 4 sessions I got are weekend days. evening session on Sat 4th, morning session on Sun 5th. Then morning & evening sessions on Sat 11th.
Now to decide which 3 sessions I shall attempt to apply for when the next round of applications are allowed in July.

Spam

[taz]

From where you can get this? Can you mention here some of the most prior place for this?


Spam

[Thomond78]

Sean O'Neill's story is an interesting one, and telling of the differences between sport in Ireland and New Zealand, a country of similar size and population. He went to NZ in the first place to enhance his prospects playing rugby, but before long he had the opportunity to give rowing a go and in the end has forged a great career as a rower there. How did a guy with great talent for rowing not discover the sport before going overseas, even though he lived only a few miles from some of the better rowing clubs in Ireland? It seems that in Ireland we get locked into a particular sport at an early age, and don't get the opportunities to try others, some of which we might be very good at, but perhaps in other countries there is a more open approach sport.

There are some factors you can't legislate for. Take me: I'm a good sailor, and a specialist crew, which makes me even more valuable in terms of building crews. I was, at best, a mediocre rugby player. But I spent much more time playing rugby instead of developing my sailing because, bad and all as I was, I bloody loved playing. You'll always get that sort of attrition. The key to dealing with it is getting as many in as possible to deal with those falling out.

[lahinch_lass]

Anyone getting set to see our Paralympians in action ? From what little I've heard of them it seems we've far better chances of medals from that team.

[i_like_cake]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19344534

Holy crap what are these Jordanians getting up to....




"Faisal Hammash, 35, a trainer with the squad, faces two counts of causing a child to engage in sexual activity.
Power-lifter Omar Sami Qaradhi, 31, is charged with three counts of sexual assault and one of voyeurism. At least two of the assaults were against children.
Motaz Al-Junad, 45, also a power-lifter, faces one charge of sexual assault. All the offences took place between 16 and 20 August.
"

[i_like_cake]

I am slightly curious as to know what disabilities they have.....

[i_like_cake]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19355630

[99_oK?]

I am slightly curious as to know what disabilities they have.....

2 are wheelchair-bound + trainer (able-bodied).

[lahinch_lass]

reminder that the paralympics start later this week.. London2012 may finally put the Paralympics on a closer footing to their able-bodied counterparts for public awareness, a few high profile paraymmpians this time 'round. Alex Zanardi (former f1 driver) is on the cycle team for the italians. And Ireland has 2 defending champions in the games.

[99_oK?]

Saw an i-view with Zanardi - amazing guy and a real inspiration. Docs said he should never have survived that crash, but he's put it behind him and just wants to get on with life.

Has even worked with NASA in developing stuff since, and did a science/technology on Italian TV.

Here's an article that briefly chronicles his life so far: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/oly...ndon-2012.html

[munstershane]

Giving a shout out to James McCarthy, shot - putt paralympian and Munster fan.

Good luck James.