IT ALL HIT home for Béibhinn Parsons at a family barbecue last weekend.
The Irish rugby star is going to the Olympic Games.
The Sevens squads were named the previous Monday, but the Paris 2024 realisation didn’t fully sink in until a celebration at her aunty’s house.
“It all felt very, very real,” Parsons tells The 42.
“I walked in and I wasn’t expecting all my family to be there, all my cousins. There was Olympic bunting and flags and signs — and a poster that everyone signed, and people were handing me cards.
“I was just like, ‘Oh my God, it’s actually really real now…’ and it’s nearly terrifying, but it was so nice. Everyone is just so proud.”
No one more so than her parents, Vincent and Evelyn, who the 22-year-old called as soon as she found out she was on the plane.
There were no shortage of pre-selection jitters and nerves, as players were given the option of a one-on-one meeting or a phone call. Parsons opted for the latter so she could hang up and go for a walk if it wasn’t the outcome she wanted.
Thankfully, that wasn’t the case and she jumped on another happy call immediately.
“When I got the news, I was quite level-headed about it — never too high, never too low — but as soon as my parents heard, they were ecstatic. You realise how much it means to your family and how proud they are. That nearly means more to me than for myself.”
Parsons has an abundance of Olympics memories. She remembers London 2012 the clearest, with athletics and gymnastics her favourite sports to watch. She recalls painting the Olympic rings in school, and random events being on the TV at home.
“I thought as soon as you’d go to the Olympics, you’d be rich and famous and set up for life. Now that I’m actually getting there, I’m seeing that maybe that’s not the case,” she laughs.
“I just remember thinking it’s the pinnacle of sport, and that I definitely wanted to be at one.”
She didn’t know much about team sports at the Games, with Rugby Sevens only joining the programme at Rio 2016. As much as she wanted to go to the Olympics as a child, it wasn’t in her wildest dreams to play rugby on that stage.
“No,” the Ballinasloe flier shakes her head. “When I was playing rugby as kid, I never thought I’d play for Ireland even.
“It was just a whirlwind that sort of swept me off my feet and I landed up there. It was just honestly crazy. To think that you could go to the Olympics [for rugby], I thought that was bizarre as well. Once you know that, and it’s something that you’ve always wanted, you just need to hunt it down and get there.
“Everyone that comes into our Sevens programme, the Olympics is the pinnacle for us, and we want to do everything we can to get there and to perform. To be part of the team that was the first to qualify is massive for me.”
At that, Parsons is reminded of the matching tattoos she and her team-mates got after qualifying.
She lifts up her left arm, revealing a bee on the back of it, just above her elbow.
It’s a nod to symbolism they followed with their sports psychologist, Siobhain McArdle: the players were all bees working together to protect their hive, or their team, and make honey.
“Be together, be present, be buzzing, that was our mantra.” Parsons smiles.
“I said, ‘I’ll never get a tattoo,’ and one of the girls (Stacey Flood) said, ‘But what if you ever get dementia? Wouldn’t you like to point to it and someone tell you that story?’
‘I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll get it!’ That sold me.”
She hasn’t added any more ink, but hopes to get the Olympic rings should all go to plan over the coming weeks.
2024 has been a rollercoaster so far, and there’s no sign of it slowing down.
Parsons was one of several Irish players who balanced Sevens duties with 15s, juggling the World Cup dream with a Six Nations campaign. She was instrumental for both, helping the 15s to a third-place finish and the Sevens to a first-ever World Series title.
“It’s been a massive year. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t some highs and lows. It was a humongous undertaking for me to go back and forth between both teams. I did find that time really overwhelming before it happened, but when you’re actually in it and you’re going through it and and you’re feeling so comfortable and welcomed in both squads, it’s good.
“It’s nearly the thought of it - ‘I’ll be in 15s and I’ll be missing what they’re doing in Sevens’ and vice versa, because you never want to miss out or be on the back foot. That was something that I had to grapple with and be like, ‘It’s okay, you’re still working hard, even if you’re not with this team.’
“Playing a WXV and a full Six Nations is some people’s whole whole season, and then playing a full World Series is some people’s whole season, so to be able to do both is such a privilege, but it does come with a lot of stress as well. I’ve been in really good hands and honestly, I can’t put into words how good both teams are to me. They welcome me each time, and there’s never been any hostility or things like that, which is massive for such competitive groups that they still welcome me with open arms.”
It’s obviously physically demanding, but takes more of a mental toll. “I’ll get over the physical stuff. I don’t care if I’m bruised or battered,” Parsons explains, “but hopping between both and learning the detail of both and that sink-in period… I hate that, when you’re just getting used to everything again. I just want to hit the ground running.
“But all that aside, it’s been a brilliant year, and I’m honestly so privileged that I was allowed to do this and to play both. That is my dream, to be able to travel the world with my best friends, but also stand in front of a home crowd and sing your national anthem. I get the best of both worlds.”
She has had that for quite some time now. Parsons burst onto the scene at the age of 16, becoming Ireland’s youngest senior rugby international in the 2018 Autumn internationals.
She was too young to play senior club or inter-pro rugby, but there she was representing her country on the biggest stage. A whirlwind that swept her off her feet, indeed.
Her talent was striking from the get-go, her potential endless. With that came expectation and attention. How did she handle it all?
“I’m really grateful for my younger self. She weirdly had a good head on her shoulders. I just remember not reading any of the newspaper articles, not believing the hype, because at the time, it was just like this elusive potential. It wasn’t that I was this ready-made, brilliant, world-class player.
“It was just all potential and I knew if I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain, there is no hype, there’s nothing to be that proud of. It was just what people saw that I could be, it’s not what I was right now.
“I never read any of the articles, I didn’t Google my own name or look myself up on Twitter. I tried to stay away from all that stuff. No offence to anyone in media, but media is so fickle — you can be a hero, you can be a zero within a week, and I knew that.”
“If I’m being honest, I had massive imposter syndrome when I was younger,” she adds. “I thought, ‘What am I doing here?’
“I find it very uncomfortable to to read into any of that hype, so I just stayed away from it and and it’s done me really well, because now, good game or bad game, I just rely on the people around me that actually know what they’re talking about and I trust their feedback, rather than relying on social media to see if I played well or bad.
“I try to just keep it to a small circle and drown out the other stuff. That’s a lot easier said than done, to be honest. Sometimes you fall into a trap of reading stuff here and there, but I try to stay away from all of it, good or bad.”
While the Sevens teams generally operate under the radar, they’ll be firmly under the spotlight this summer. There’ll be good, bad and everything in between. Warts and all.
Both teams have made no secret of the fact they’re targetting medals in Paris.
More eyes and expectation than ever, but Parsons won’t stray from that messaging
“We know that when everything aligns, that we can do amazing things on the pitch,” she concludes, as Australia, Great Britain and South Africa await in their pool.
“A good Olympics for us is when we all come together and we perform, and we do our families, we do Ireland proud, that’s what we want to do. We think — I do anyway — the best way to repay everyone that’s been so good to me is to come home with a medal.
“That’s definitely what I want to do.”
TritonLake became the title sponsor of the Ireland Men’s and Women’s Sevens teams in June 2021 and are delighted to continue to support and celebrate the success of both teams over this season so far and the coming season.
