Ireland’s Olympics team are in Paris ‘to compete, not participate’

With four days remaining for athletes to win a place, the Irish team stands at 125, and could hit 130. The record is the 116 that travelled to Tokyo, and Sarah Keane, president of the Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI), made a bold declaration of Irish intent yesterday.

"We do not go to participate, we go to compete," she said, while also hailing this as "the most united team" to ever compete for the country.

Keane’s term as president comes to an end later this year, after a transformational seven years in charge, in which she oversaw the recovery of the Irish Olympic movement following the scandal of Rio 2016.

In that time, the rebranded OFI has forged new relationships with the Government and Sport Ireland, the latter the body that oversees State involvement in Irish sport.

The OFI estimates that 60,000 tickets have been sold in Ireland for the Olympics, with a rough rule of thumb that one person buys three tickets.

That would mean 20,000 visiting Irish fans, but that figure doesn’t include tickets purchased in the North, with an additional 5,000 fans predicted to travel from there.

They will all travel in support of an Irish team of which more is expected than any team that has gone before them.

And the man who will lead the Irish team believes that there is such a spread of quality in their ranks that there will be up to a dozen possibilities of real success.

"We have opportunities to do very well,’ said Gavin Noble, chef de mission of the Irish team and a former Olympic triathlete himself, in London in 2012.

"We have 12 opportunities; there are going to be 12 moments in these Games that will define the Games for everyone. People in this room will have their own thoughts on who those people will be and what those 12 moments will be, but that point is exciting for me.

"We haven’t gone to a Games before with 12 opportunities across different sports to do well."

He also insisted that the levels of expectation around the team are a positive force, but that there are athletes in the team who have already achieved on a global scale.

"We should never diminish the achievement of someone who is a world champion, being a world champion based on the result of the Olympic Games," he said.

"Rhys McClenaghan is a world champion, Daniel Wiffen is a world champion. The result in the Olympic Games doesn’t make that any less."

Minister for Sport Catherine Martin said: "I send each and every member of Team Ireland my very best wishes for a successful Olympics. More than anything else, I hope that their Olympic experience will be an enjoyable one that will give them cherished memories for the rest of their lives.

"I am also looking forward to the Irish sporting public getting behind Team Ireland as they seek to fulfil their sporting dreams."

* This article was originally published on Extra.ie.