Shane O'Connor on organising the Irish Open Ski Championships.
More than 100 top artificial slope skiers from Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales will descend on Kilternan, Co Dublin, today for the Irish Open Artificial Slope Ski Championships.
Ski Club of Ireland is organising the two-day invitational on the grounds of Kilternan Golf Club, and it is open to spectators. Shane O'Connor is one of seven members of the club's race committee, and says it's a sizeable event for a voluntary organisation to put together. "We have anything up to 60 people on the day doing different tasks; timekeepers, gate judges, results co-ordinators, catering teams supplying lunch for everyone, and so on. In the run-up to the event the committee was flat out recruiting and organising volunteers, setting up a website with information and entry forms, and then co-ordinating entries as they came in. Then there is the usual logistics, setting up marquees and so on."
O'Connor says the standard will be high. "The guys participating in this would be used to competitive racing on snow. We've had entrants in previous years that have gone on to the British senior squad. It counts for seed points, so guys come to get points for their ranking."
An IT employee with a financial services company, O'Connor also acts as Ski Club of Ireland's racing coach and is himself an accomplished skier. "I was on the first Irish team to go to a world championship in 1993 and I went again in 2003 and 2005," he says.
He believes Irish skiing is not the subject of mirth it used to be, thanks to talents such as Thos Foley and Kirsty McGarry, who represented Ireland at the Turin Winter Olympics in February. "It's so impressive what they have achieved. To come from somewhere with no snow at all and to get to a level where you wonder what they could have achieved if they had been born somewhere like Austria."
The Irish Open Artificial Slope Ski Championships are in Kilternan Golf Club, Co Dublin, today and tomorrow.