All eyes were on Sonia O’Sullivan as she claimed a silver medal at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. The Cobh native became the second Irish female to land on the podium and hopes are high that more athletes can match her success in Paris this summer. Rhasidat Adeleke and Ciara Mageean are two of Ireland’s biggest medal hopes thanks to their incredible performances at June’s European Championships in Rome. Here, Sonia talks about the importance of sport, her return to Ireland’s Fittest Family, and staying energised.
It’s been amazing. We had days upon days of success at the European Championships. The level of interest in athletics has grown because people were tuning in and the sport has been in the spotlight. The girls have been having fun while competing, particularly with the relay teams. That has shown that athletics is not just an individual sport, it’s a team sport and you can work together and be successful together.
You have to try and balance it. If I need to speak to Sophie about something to do with her training or her races then I can definitely flip the switch on and off. It’s like any parent, if I need to get a message across to her and tell her something important then I’ll make a point of doing that. You don’t dwell on that and you just take a small amount of time before moving on. I was like that with my coach when I was an athlete. If I was preparing for a race, you’d have a chat the day before or a few hours before the race. But once you have that chat you move on and you go back to normal life. You can’t let it take over your whole life or your whole day, it’s just a small part.
Sophie and Ciara played basketball, soccer and netball growing up. You find that some people become more attracted to individual sports over team sports. You have the full responsibility of the outcome, rather than depending on others. That’s a big thing that attracts people to athletics.
Staying Active: A Lifelong Journey
I can do [laughs]. It just depends on the time I have available. I’m disciplined in the sense that I take an hour for myself every day and I fill that hour with something I’m interested in. That’s a message for a lot of people, you need to take some time for yourself to do something active. We can all get trapped with being busy and sitting down at work. But if we have a goal or target for ourselves it’s a lot easier to get moving. I signed up for a triathlon last month and even though I didn’t have a lot of training done I knew I had to prepare myself for it. I ticked the boxes of sea swimming, I had my bike with me while commentating in RTÉ and the running is hard work. I do what I can. Taking part in that and a recent 5km was hard and it made me realise that I needed to do something to make it easier. No matter what age you are, it’s important to have goals and targets. The diligence that I have now is different, but I still understand what I need to do to feel good. I feel good when I’m out and being active every day. I’m not happy or fun to be around when I’m not active.
Combating Racial Abuse in Sport: Rhasidat Adeleke's Strength
It wasn’t something that I was totally aware of. I think the majority of that was from earlier in the year and I think her coach was bringing up something that Rhasidat had dealt with already. She’s clearly focused on the job she needs to do at the Olympics. It’s a distraction that you need to be able to block out and put to one side. There are ways of doing that and you need to let the people who can deal with that take care of it for you. For Rhasidat, she has moved on and it’s not something she needs to focus on. She’s respected as a great athlete and she’s a central part of the Irish team. She’s the heart and soul of Irish athletics right now.
The Importance of Support & Positive Focus
When you’re focused on what you need to do it’s actually quite easy. You have a plan and you work with your coach. You have dates you have to be ready for and you’re so focused on that, you don’t have time for anything else. If you want to find something negative about yourself on the internet, you can find it. You just have to look for it, but why would you go looking for something that’s not going to be of benefit to you? As athletes, supporters and coaches, we need to promote the positives that help the athletes and not drag them down with negative stories.
Ciara Mageean's Medal Hopes and the Olympic Challenge
She will have to practise for a different type of race going to Paris compared to the European Championships. When the rest of the world steps in the pace will be a lot greater and there will be more athletes who could have more of a dominant impact on the outcome of the race.
Allianz's #StopTheDrop Campaign: Encouraging Youth Participation
To be a medal winning athlete on the world or European stage, it doesn’t happen overnight. It doesn’t happen instantly, you’ve got to work hard and maintain a commitment to the sport throughout your school years and balance things when you move from primary school to secondary school. A lot of young kids are inspired now and they’re excited to see the success of the athletes recently. There’s been a huge response to athletics clubs and people want to be involved. Hopefully we can build on that and keep kids in sport for as long as possible.
Sport: A Positive Force for Young Minds
Sports are such a positive thing for young kids. It gives them a release of energy and a break from school and any tension. In Ireland, a lot of kids and parents think that once they are in an exam year that they can’t take that time for sport. In reality, they need to take that time more than anything else. A lot of young people spend so much time on their phones and social media and they’re not being active. That can be wasted time. If you have a sport to take part in, you can leave your phone down and be with your friends in person. Sport allows you to travel and meet new people outside of your school circle. We need to really encourage that. Sport isn’t just about being competitive, it’s about participating.
Returning to the Fittest Family: A Team of Coaches
Filming is good fun. We’re very competitive as coaches, but we also have to spend a lot of time together during the downtime and when we’re waiting around. We get on very well and it’s great to have three coaches from Cork.
Nina was fantastic. I really enjoyed her company and her competitiveness last year. It’s great to see her moving on to something different and being successful in that as well.
We’ll be back next week for the Olympics, so we’re looking forward to that.
The Allianz “Stop The Drop” campaign sheds critical light on the decline in sports participation among Irish children, particularly during the pivotal transition from primary to secondary school. The #StopTheDrop research report can be found at allianz.ie/stopthedrop.
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