Rob Heffernan has called on politicians to ‘put their money where mouths are’ in relation to funding Irish athletes.
Team Ireland enjoyed one of its most successful Olympics ever winning seven medals but RTÉ pundits Derval O’Rourke, Sonia O’Sullivan and Heffernan feel there is lots of room for improvement.
The Cork man called on the Irish government to invest more in high performance sport to help fund coaches, athletes and facilities. The Irish women’s 4x400m relay team produced a barnstorming performance finishing fourth behind USA, the Netherlands and the USA but Heffernan has called on those in power to support the team.
He name-checked Phil Healy and Sophie Becker as athletes who are only part-time, comparing them to the likes of Gabby Thomas and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone of the US who are global stars of the sport.
“Two of these girls are part-time, they’re up against mega-stars in the Americans.”
Heffernan feels that now is the time to capitalise on Ireland’s success at the Olympics, calling on those in power to put their money where their mouths are.
“I’ve gone to 5 Olympics. I come home, we all get caught up in the hype. The athletes come home and everything is forgotten about,” he said.
“In this Olympic cycle, we’ve invested €89 million in all high performance sport.
“We bring in net revenue into the country every year of €100 billion.”
“So why can’t these athletes come home from Paris now and give them a guarantee that we’ll double the funding for the next few years. Look at the impact that it has on society.
“There’s loads of stuff we can do, we need to fund more coaches. We’ve no PE in primary schools in Ireland. We should have athletics coaches going into the primary schools following the GAA model because athletics is the fundamentals for all sports. And even if you don’t end up a competitive athlete, you’ll end up with a healthier more resilient society. We need more tracks. The size of Cork, we’ve only one track, and that’s privately owned.”
“Invest in sport. Look how positive it makes everybody. We need investment. The girls are going to come off the plane, they’ll be in the áras, all of the politicians will be around. So put your money where your mouth is now and let’s back them.”
Sonia O’Sullivan agrees with Heffernan’s point that Ireland needs to move forward rather than standing still on the back of their success.
“We can be satisfied with the results we got at these Olympics, but we can’t be comfortable with it,” she said.
