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Irelands most likely Olympic 2012 Medals
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I love how no-one's mentioned Derek Burnett or Philip Murphy yet. I guess winning the World Championships (twice in Philip's case) and dozens of World Cup and Continental Championships events in Olympic Shotgun shooting doesn't get reported on much...
Ya, they'd have a good SHOT alright
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@IrishOlympians' "Athletes of the day" are the Irish target shooters:Athletes of the day = The Irish @intershootnl shoot team with their bronze medals. COME ON IRELAND twitpic.com/8gh1k5
The two chaps at the front of the Irish team there are Ray Kane and Paul O'Boyle, both of whom will be going forward to the European Championships in a week to compete for a quota place to go to London 2012. Five places are up for grabs in Men's Air Rifle, and with their PBs at 590 and 589 respectively, both have a very real chance of winning a quota place for Ireland in shooting, something that's not been done in rifle shooting in over a century.
Also going will be Ashling Miller competing in Womens Air Rifle (which also has five quota places up for grabs) and Peter Friend competing in Mens Air Pistol (again, five quota places up for grabs).
Not bad for a group of athletes who can only train in their free time, have to hold down full-time jobs and pay for absolutely everything from their own pocket because the Irish Sports Council won't even recognise their National Governing Body (it's the only Olympic sport in the country that the ISC doesn't recognise). Especially when you notice that every other shooter on that podium is a fully-funded, fully supported athlete in a full-time training programme, and that they're all ten years younger than our team because our team isn't legally allowed to start training until ten years after their international competitors start training. And even with all that, there were 20 points between us and the GB team out of 1800 points in total (a 1% difference).0 -
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And some favorable press on the Intershoot trip from TheScore.ie (the sports section of TheJournal.ie):On target: Irish shooters achieve success against all odds.
Ray Kane on his way to 6th place in the men's air-rifle
INTERSHOOT IS AN annual event in The Hague, ideal for Olympic preparation and Ireland’s shooting team came away with a success which belies their paltry resources.
The team claimed two new Irish records and five out of the six managed to better the minimum qualifying score for the Olympics.
One of those records was Ray Kane’s rifle score of 590 out of 600. It earned him a sixth place finish, but the five who led him were all full-time shooters, given full funding and resources to back them during their exploits.
The Irish are all part-timers, struggling to force together the means for needed to compete at an elite international level.
The group must take the time to travel across Europe for tournaments (never mind training and practice) out of their spare time and holiday allowances from their regular day-job.
Looking on longingly at the resources afforded to other national squads is Mark Dennehy. Dennehy arrived back from the Netherlands reporting of how the host nation owned their own dedicated transport for shooters and equipment. Or how the English team crossed the channel with the largest contingent, full time coaches and staff bulking up their entourage beyond Ireland’s wildest dreams.
Dennehy and his team, meanwhile, are left to simply let their pistols and rifles do the talking.
Their coach, Matt Fox, had to remain in Ireland due to travel costs. Indeed, only one non-shooter travelled with the team as staff to cover the mounds of paperwork and logistics duty associated with transporting firearms.
Irish mens air-rifle team celebrate bronze at Intershoot - Ray Kane on left, Paul O’Boyle on right, Mark Dennehy in back row)
Essential activities such as cooking duties are taken up by the competitors themselves, negating much needed rest time. To properly underline the added strain of this activity, Dennehy rhetorically asks:
“Do you know how much seven adults working 12-hour days in subzero temperatures at a rifle match can eat, and still lose weight?”
The answer is a lot, but despite the uphill struggle, Ireland still managed to get within a whisker of their heavily backed rivals. Dennehy amongst those coming away with a bronze medal in the men’s air-rifle competition. The Netherlands were only 20 points better off and, silver-medallists, England just 12.
That gap, Dennehy says, could be closed with just a minor boost in funding. Currently the income is a nominal fee from the Olympic Council of ireland – not enough to cover one, never mind seven competitors – and nothing from the Irish Sports Council. That state of affairs has left Dennehy with the peculiar emotional mix of anger and pride as his cohorts keep trudging on despite it all.
“There’s a part of me that wonders” Says Dennehy,” in only our free time outside of our full-time jobs, we’re close enough to full-time fully-funded Olympic teams. That gap could be closed with just money, and not that much money at that.”
“And that part of me is desperately proud of what us little Irish shooters can manage to do.”
Paying out of their own pocket to represent Ireland on an international stage inevitably leads to talk of this summer’s Olympic games.
There are plenty of hurdles to overcome before that becomes a prescient matter. Next week they travel to Finland for the European Championships and, in April, they will get to test their skills on the Olympic range at the World Cup in London, before hopefully returning for the big show in August.
As things currently stand, that is just a foolhardy dream. An aspiration that is making them haemorrhage money every time they do Ireland proud.
Yet they have no intention of doing anything else.0 -
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So just 170 days to go until the opening ceremony kicks off in London and in the run-up to the Olympics I will post some random pieces of information about team Ireland. As it stands, Ireland has secured 29 Olympic berths for the Games, although we only have an idea who 25 of those athletes are (as we do not yet know who will represent us in the cycling). Just for a bit of fun and personal amusement, I have made a table outlining which counties are represented amongst our qualifiers. Unsurprisingly, Dublin is leading the way so far with 7 qualified athletes, swiftly followed by Cork with 5 currently. So, how is your county doing? Are they represented yet? Are they likely to be represented on the big stage in London this year? We will be able to update this information as the year progresses. Let me know if you spot any errors.
County|Number of athletes qualified|Details|
Dublin|7|Linda Byrne, Ava Hutchinson,Deirdre Ryan,Mark Kenneally,Barry Murphy,Annalise Murphy,David Burrows
Cork|5|Derval O'Rourke,Olive Loughnane,Robert Heffernan,Ciaran O'Lionaid,Peter O'Leary
Antrim|2|Ryan Seaton,Michael Conlan
Wicklow|2|Fionnuala Britton,Stephanie Reilly
Derry|1|Aileen Morrison
Donegal|1|Brendan Boyce
Down|1|Matt McGovern
Galway|1|Paul Hession
Kilkenny|1|Darren O'Neill
Westmeath|1|John Joe Nevin
Wexford|1|Grainne Murphy
Other/Abroad|2|Alistair Cragg (South Africa), Kieran Behan (England)
Additional Info:- So far the team is made up of 19 men and 10 women.
- Qualifiers by province: Leinster (12), Munster (5), Ulster (5), Connacht (1)
- Kieran Behan (gymnastics qualifier) although born in London, England has Irish parents: mother is from Monaghan and father from Dublin.
- So far, just as many Corkmen as Dublin men have qualified (3 a-piece).
- 4 qualifiers were born in Northern Ireland, with Aileen Morrison the only female so far on the team from the 6-counties.
- Perhaps unsurprisingly, Murphy is the most common surname, with 3 Murphys on the team.
- Olive Loughnane is the oldest member of the team at 36 years age with the youngest being Grainne Murphy who will turn 19 in March.
- The average age of our women when the Olympics get underway is 28.2yrs and 27.3yrs for the men. Overall the average is 27.7yrs for our Olympians.
- 16 of the qualifiers will be first-time Olympians in London; 4 qualifiers are returning for a second time having previously competed in Beijing in 2008; 2 qualifiers (Derval O'Rourke and Alistair Cragg) will be appearing in their 3rd consecutive Olympic Games; and a trio of Olympic veterans will be returning to the Olympic stage to make a 4th appearance, namely Robert Heffernan and Olive Loughnane who will travel to their 4th consecutive Olympics and David Burrows, who made his Olympic debut way back in Atlanta in 1996 (missed out on Beijing).
No Mayos this time around
. I suppose our best hopes would have been Ray Moylette and David O'Loughlin, but Moylettes injury has finished him and I don't think O'Loughlin is in contention this time around. 0
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