One year on since Team Ireland produced its best results since the Melbourne Games in 1956, work continues behind the scenes to assist the National Federations, there athletes and support staff in their quest to be the best they can at European , World and Olympic Level. Ireland finished in the top 41 of 204 Nations who competed in the London Games.
The Olympic Council, the Institutes of Sport, and the Sports Councils are working in collaboration to provide the best possible support over the next 4 years. ISC: funding and management for high performance plans: IIS: management of science, medical, coaching and athlete support programmes, and the OCI: operational planning and management of the team for Olympic Competition.
London provided great inspiration for our young athletes and is another important milestone in the development of a world class system for our summer and winter youth Olympians and Olympians.
Team Ireland have since performed well in two Olympic Youth Games – 2013 Winter EYOF in Brasov and at the 2013 Utrecht European Youth Olympics.
Next up the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, World Youth Olympics (2014) , EYOF’s Winter and Summer 2015, the new European Games in Baku 2015, and of course Rio 2016.
If you wish to recount memories from the London Olympic Games video highlights are available from the IOC website on http://www.olympic.org/videos
Team Ireland finished 41st in the overall medal table for the London Games. 204 countries took part with only 85 countries making it on to the medals table.
Ireland’s five medallists; Katie Taylor (Gold), John Joe Nevin (Silver) Paddy Barnes , Michael Conlan, and Cian O’Connor were supported by some excellent performances in, for example: 4th places by Rob Heffernan (50km race walking) ; Annalise Murphy 4th Laser Radial Sailing; a team eventing 5th place; individual 7th place for Aoife Clarke; Natayla Coyle 9th Modern Pentathlon; Andrez Jezierski 9th C1 200m canoe;10th place for Hannah Craig Canoe Slalom ; David Burrows and Peter O’Leary’s 10th place in the Star category.
In addition the 4x 400 womens relay were ranked 13th ; Sanita Puspure 13th Single scull Rowing ; 13th Martyn Irvine men’s omnium cycling; 13th Olive Loughnane 20km walk; 14th Joseph Murphy individual eventing and Matt McGovern/ Ryan Seaton 14th 49er sailing category. Canoeist Eoin Rheinisch 14th Derval O’Rourke 15th made their respective semi finals and were ranked 14th and 15th respectively.
66 athletes competed for Team Ireland in 14 sports.
43 athletes competed in their first Olympic Games, 15 in their second Games, 4 in their third and 4 in a fourth Games.
Three medals were won by athletes competing in their second Games (O’Connor, Barnes and Nevin) and two (Taylor and Conlan ) in their first Olympic Games.
