TEAM IRELAND ARE targeting “between eight and 10 medals” at the Paralympic Games, according to Paralympics Ireland CEO Stephen McNamara.
A 35-strong Irish team of 29 athletes and six pilots will compete across nine sports in Paris, with competition getting underway on Thursday.
Ireland has won 230 medals since the first Paralympics in 1960, with seven medals — four of them gold — coming at the last Games in Tokyo.
“There’s some examples in other countries maybe where the goal targets have led to poor athlete outcomes,” said McNamara, who is 18 months into the role having previously worked as IRFU Director of Communications.
“Look, we do have goal targets, we do have medal targets. I think what we’re looking at, hopefully, is somewhere between eight and 10 medals in these Games. But you’re also hoping for personal bests, season bests, experience.
“Only three people in each category will win a medal – and I think what we’ve seen from the Olympics is actually fourth at that level is also phenomenal. But we make no secret of it, we do want to get medals.”
McNamara points to Ellen Keane and Nicole Turner as swimming medal prospects. Róisín Ní Riain is another. He has high expectations for sprinter Orla Comerford, power lifter Britney Arendse and the cycling team, too, but stresses ever-increasing standards.
Heavyweights Team GB, USA and France will perform strongly, while other countries like China have gone all in of late. “Hopefully along the way, we’ll sneak the odd 10 medals or so,” McNamara again adds, with development for LA 2028 and Brisbane 2032 already on the radar.
He acknowledges that there’s a balance to be struck between visibility and high performance, and believes London 2012 was a “transformational Games for the Para movement” in that sense.
“I suppose the approach that I’ve always taken to sport – and it was the same when I was in rugby – is, these are basically products. People in sport sometimes react against that, when you speak in those terms.
“The reality is we have a number of products that we will be putting out there for people to support and get in behind. The same with rugby, GAA — 15, 20 years ago in Ireland, you wouldn’t have seen Leinster versus Munster be the most important game of the weekend, whereas you see that now.
“What we’re trying to do really is understand that by building the visibility and building the support into the athlete, you’re actually building a product that other people can get on board with, and through that, you hopefully get more support from broadcasters and the media because you’re creating a story. From that, we will look to try and increase our sponsorship portfolio.”
McNamara sees real opportunity for the growth of Para and disability sport in Ireland, and feels the “blueprint” of transforming women’s sport over the last decade can be followed.
“It kind of reminds me of where we were 10 or 15 years ago with women’s sport.
“It’s not rocket science. We know Irish people are great, we know they will jump on a bandwagon — we just want all bandwagons to be accessible. And if they have been accessible to women over the last 10 years, they can now be accessible to the disability community over the next 10 years because Irish people genuinely have an interest in all sport.”
The TV-friendly time zone will help as RTÉ provides extensive coverage, but Paralympics Ireland will continue to strive for more across the board.
“We are still fighting, we are still the underdog,” McNamara says.
“It is about thanking and being grateful for what we are getting but still having that underdog feel of ‘what else can we get?’ And it’s pushing if I’m being honest.
“How else does transformational change happen in sport in Ireland? Quite honestly it’s when people stand up and say, ‘What about us?’ whether it is the women’s rugby team, the women’s soccer team, female GAA teams, it’s people standing up and saying, ‘Look okay, what we get is great, but we want more and we deserve more.’
“I think if we can build that into LA and really have it humming for Brisbane, it will just mean we will get more athletes, and let more people were who either born with a disability or acquired a disability at some stage in their life know there is an outlet for me.”
