Ireland's Most Under Appreciated Sporting Achievement

Anesthetize

kenco wrote: »

There was an Irish driver (forget his name) who might have driven for Jordan in the early days but it didnt happen. Pity as this guy was apparently as good as anyone but didnt have the application. If he was with Jordan and they had a good engine the world might have been their oyster but such are the way of these things....just remebered his name Tommy Byrne there a good book on him for anyone whos interested

Oh man Tommy Byrne. He had a few races with the Theodore team during the 1982 season but had a horrible car and never finished a single race. He also tested for McLaren for a potential drive with them for 1983 but it didn't happen. This guy raced alongside Senna in the lower classes and Senna said that he was the only driver he ever feared. Byrne had the potential to be world champion but by the time he got to F1 he got into drugs and threw it all away.

megadodge

Some brilliant sportspeople mentioned so far, but a glaring ommision is the handball genius that is Paul Brady.

He has won the world title four times (the world championship is held only every three years) and you won't find anybody betting against him winning his fifth this coming August in Canada.

It's not just the amount of titles he has won, but it's the incredible skill level and consistency he has reached and maintained in a very difficult sport over the last 10-12 years. He usually obliterates the best players in the world but occasionally when he has to, his ability to find a way to win in a close finish is legendary.

Unfortunately, handball doesn't translate well onto the screen, so even if I direct you to Youtube videos it's very hard to appreciate what's going on when the ball is almost impossible to see, but I can guarantee you if you were to ask any person who has ever seen him play 'live' who is the greatest Irish sportsperson they've ever seen, his name will certainly come into the equation - but the vast majority of people in Ireland have no idea who he is.

Manic Moran

In the 19th Century, Ireland was to shooting what Germany or Brasil are to football today. You'll find that the Irish Olympic squad almost always contains a few shooters even though Ireland's prominence in the sport is now far from the dominating position it used to hold.

JillyQ

Ireland winning the Agan Khan Cup outright in 1979. It hasnt been done since by any other country.

homerhop

Manic Moran wrote: »

In the 19th Century, Ireland was to shooting what Germany or Brasil are to football today. You'll find that the Irish Olympic squad almost always contains a few shooters even though Ireland's prominence in the sport is now far from the dominating position it used to hold.

Almost every comp Irish teams or individuals bring home some medals, ATM we have a gallery rifle team who are world champions. A shillouette shooter who entered the worlds a few months ago and came home with a gold. Over 40 medals brought home by a squad from Austria a few weeks back. All done with no funding from the sports council of Ireland and funded out of their own pockets and definitely no recognition by our print media.

wp_rathead

Ireland winning the A1 Grand Prix over 08/09 was pretty cool

hmmm

Jordan winning races in Formula 1. It's a sport that requires massive investment, and new teams rarely get anywhere without some billionaire sugar daddy behind them - what Eddie Jordan and Gary Anderson achieved with minimum resources is, in reflection, unbelievable.

In saying all that, the Cricket team beating Pakistan is something I would consider to probably be the single greatest achievement by an Irish team in any sport. It'd be like the Berlin hurling team beating Kilkenny in the All Ireland semi-final.

wp_rathead

hmmm wrote: »

Jordan winning races in Formula 1. It's a sport that requires massive investment, and new teams rarely get anywhere without some billionaire sugar daddy behind them - what Eddie Jordan and Gary Anderson achieved with minimum resources is, in reflection, unbelievable.

In saying all that, the Cricket team beating Pakistan is something I would consider to probably be the single greatest achievement by an Irish team in any sport. It'd be like the Berlin hurling team beating Kilkenny in the All Ireland semi-final.

Or Kevin O'brien almost single handedly beating the English and setting new batting records - really is amazing how we compete with these nations

Johnny Jukebox

Stephen Roche in 1987 - an absolutely amazing achievement to win the Giro d'Italia, Tour De France and World Championships in one year. Its akin to an athlete winning Olympic and World Championship gold in one year - with only one event for all to compete in.

Talib Fiasco

I think it has to be Jason Smyth for me. Back to back Olympic Champion in T13 100m and 200m. World Record holder in both, smashing his own previous world records numerous times. He is also the reigning World and European champion in both his fields. Sure he gets his customary five or ten minutes when he breaks his own world record and wins a gold but his achievements are criminally underrated in comparison to some of our other athletes who frankly haven't achieved a quarter of what he has achieved. Simply incredible achievements from an Irish man, definitely one of the country's best.

iDave

We won 3 golds across the 28 and 32 Olympics. Not bad for a new state that was low on funds.

bucketybuck

Muahahaha wrote: »

This may or may not be true but I later heard from a Louth player that the success of the 2004 Fermanagh team was due to a big push by Sean Quinn to try to land an Ulster title for Fermanagh. So he employed virtually the entire team in his businesses except they hardly did any work- the team were essentially Irelands first ever professional GAA team in that they spent more of their week training than they did working. He employed the best coaches money could find and it was all very professionally set up for an amateur game. Again I'm not sure if it was true but it would certainly go a long way towards explaining how Fermangh were useless one year and then suddenly they looked like a good outside bet for the All Ireland the next.

Where on earth did this complete and utter fantasy come from?

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

bucketybuck wrote: »

Where on earth did this complete and utter fantasy come from?

The same place the story Michael Donellan was homeless and lived on Eyre Square came from.

bucketybuck

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

The same place the story Michael Donellan was homeless and lived on Eyre Square came from.

Its just such complete and utter bollocks, I'm not even sure how to respond to it.

I particularly liked this bit:

Fermangh were useless one year and then suddenly they looked like a good outside bet for the All Ireland the next.

In 2003 Fermanagh were a division one side who reached the league semi-finals and then the quarter finals of the championship. Just saying.

castletownman

On the GAA theme, Cork's achievement of winning 9 of the last 10 All Ireland Ladies football titles only got the recognition it deserved this year when they won the Team of the Year accolade at the RTE Sports Awards. Phenomenal achievement even taking into consideration that a good team is more likely to dominate in ladies sport than mens (hope that doesn't come across as sexist).

Briege Corkery has 13 senior All Ireland medals between camogie and football. Unlikely to be matched.

Muahahaha

Manic Moran wrote: »

In the 19th Century, Ireland was to shooting what Germany or Brasil are to football today. You'll find that the Irish Olympic squad almost always contains a few shooters even though Ireland's prominence in the sport is now far from the dominating position it used to hold.

Why did the decline happen, did something major change ?

valoren

Johnny Jukebox wrote: »

Stephen Roche in 1987 - an absolutely amazing achievement to win the Giro d'Italia, Tour De France and World Championships in one year. Its akin to an athlete winning Olympic and World Championship gold in one year - with only one event for all to compete in.

Very similar to Michelle Smith for me. Those achievements have been subsequently tarnished so to speak.

valoren

For me personally it's the Paralympians in general.

I didn't know that Ireland won 16 medals (8 of which were Gold) at the 2012 Paralympics! Had to google.

jack presley

Johnny Jukebox wrote: »

Stephen Roche in 1987 - an absolutely amazing achievement to win the Giro d'Italia, Tour De France and World Championships in one year. Its akin to an athlete winning Olympic and World Championship gold in one year - with only one event for all to compete in.

Hardly under appreciated though was it? That was cycling at its peak in popularity in Ireland and he was in every newspaper etc at the time. He even got to flog some Galtee cheese out of it. He was everywhere.

But as a subsequent poster says, that whole era is looked upon with scepticism these days.

Muahahaha

valoren wrote: »

Very similar to Michelle Smith for me. Those achievements have been subsequently tarnished so to speak.

What exactly is the story with Stephen Roche? I dont follow cycling that much but remember his 87 tdF win well as a kid. But then viewing those documentaries about Lance Armstrong, Paul Kimmage, etc it seems like practically every rider in the late 80s and 90s were on performance enhancing drugs and during that time a few actually died from taking them. What ever happened to the Stephen Roche angle, has any journalist ever asked him was he on performance enhancing drugs when he won the tdF in 1987 ?

Jimoslimos

valoren wrote: »

For me personally it's the Paralympians in general.

I didn't know that Ireland won 16 medals (8 of which were Gold) at the 2012 Paralympics! Had to google.

It is a fairly niche sporting achievement though in fairness. Firstly the amount of competitors worldwide with the exact same classification (of which there are several) of disability is a tiny fraction of what you would have in able-bodied events. Secondly there is another barrier to entry, namely money - developing countries who would do well in the Olympics in core athletics events (think East Africans in long-distance) do considerably worse in the Paralympics.

By all means it is a great achievement for those involved but in no way at a level equivalent to Olympic medalists (or even finalists).

chupacabra

Dr. Pat O'Callaghans back to back gold medals for Ireland in the summer Olympics of 28 and 32.

valoren

Muahahaha wrote: »

What exactly is the story with Stephen Roche? I dont follow cycling that much but remember his 87 tdF win well as a kid. But then viewing those documentaries about Lance Armstrong, Paul Kimmage, etc it seems like practically every rider in the late 80s and 90s were on performance enhancing drugs and during that time a few actually died from taking them. What ever happened to the Stephen Roche angle, has any journalist ever asked him was he on performance enhancing drugs when he won the tdF in 1987 ?

He never tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. Neither did Lance Armstrong.

As for the 87 tdf it's a case of did he or didn't he.

Talib Fiasco

valoren wrote: »

He never tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. Neither did Lance Armstrong.

As for the 87 tdf it's a case of did he or didn't he.

Not sure if you're just messing there but Lance did test positive...many times. He tested positive like four times alone in 1999.

Hazys

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

Katie Taylor.

I think Katie Taylor's achievements are way over blown.

Image if Robbie Keane stayed an amateur soccer player and we won every amateur title and award possible twice so we hailed him as the greatest ever Irish athlete and applauded him as the greatest soccer player in the world while we ignored professional soccer players like Ronaldo and Messi? Kind of a bit like Katie Taylor's achievements.

Not to mention Katie Taylor is getting paid like a professional with the grants and advertising money she is getting, beating up on people who actually are completely amateur.

I know women's boxing is slightly different as it was the first time it was ever in the Olympics and she rightly stayed amateur so she could win gold but she is staying amateur for another 4 years to compete in Rio. I think she knows she will possibly make more money being an amateur Olympic hero in Ireland than possibly take a chance of going professional and turning out to be average and forgotten. Not saying she doesn't have the ability to be the world's best but until she competes against the best, we can't really call her the best.

iDave

Going out on a limb and say Meath 96. Poor league campaign following a drubbing by Dublin the previous year. Many even tipped Carlow to win the Leinster QF that year. Number of young faces added to the panel also.
Went on the beat strong Dublin, Tyrone and Mayo teams but very little gave Meath credit especially in the media for it instead fixating on physicality of the Boylan managed team.
Began an annoying precedent whereby teams like Armagh, Tyrone and Donegal where also castigated for winning AIs because certain pundits who get to set the national debate didn't like the manner it was won.

Baggy Trousers

valoren wrote: »

He never tested positive for performance enhancing drugs. Neither did Lance Armstrong.

As for the 87 tdf it's a case of did he or didn't he.

I think he had links to some doctor who was known to provide performance enhancing drugs but nothing was proven.

Peist2007

iDave wrote: »

Going out on a limb and say Meath 96. Poor league campaign following a drubbing by Dublin the previous year. Many even tipped Carlow to win the Leinster QF that year. Number of young faces added to the panel also.
Went on the beat strong Dublin, Tyrone and Mayo teams but very little gave Meath credit especially in the media for it instead fixating on physicality of the Boylan managed team.
Began an annoying precedent whereby teams like Armagh, Tyrone and Donegal where also castigated for winning AIs because certain pundits who get to set the national debate didn't like the manner it was won.

The Meath team of 1996 were assisted by the illogical sendiing offs at the start of the replay. Sending off Meath's smallest player and Mayo's physically strongest player as punishment for a 28 man brawl firmly handed Meath the initiative.

Edit: I may be from Mayo

CrabRevolution

Peist2007 wrote: »

The Meath team of 1996 were assisted by the illogical sendiing offs at the start of the replay. Sending off Meath's smallest player and Mayo's physically strongest player as punishment for a 28 man brawl firmly handed Meath the initiative.

Edit: I may be from Mayo

I was too young in 1996 to have seen it, but early in my life I saw the replays/videos of the fight and reckoned Mayo were hard done by, even though I'm from Meath.

Unfortunately Mayo lost all my sympathy as I've heard nothing but 20 years of incessant whining from them about it. Its nearly a good thing they never win Sam. If this is how much they go on after they lose the final, imagine if they won it.

I'd say Ireland's most under appreciated sporting achievement is Mayo people's ability to go on about 1996.

Muahahaha

Hazys wrote: »

I think Katie Taylor's achievements are way over blown.

Fair play to Katie and everything she has achieved but I'd tend to agree with this, RTE seem to think that Katie is the only Irish boxer we have. That was pretty evident a few weeks ago when Andy Lee won a belt in Vegas and the first time I'd ever heard of him was AFTER he won the belt. Granted I've only a passing interest in boxing but it was pretty bad that RTE didn't even report he was fighting in the lead up to the contest. In fact if he didn't win it then they probably wouldn't have reported it at all.

In fairness to Katie she had a go at RTE Sport over their boxing coverage only a few weeks ago.