The journey through the past year, especially, has been hugely satisfying for so many of Ireland’s elite sportswomen and the final few steps – fittingly enough, climbing red-carpeted steps into the Shelbourne Hotel in the heart of Dublin city – had that sort of glitz and glamour far removed from the punishing training regimes of blood, sweat and tears that brought many such honour.
So it was that those on their final Friday of Christmas shopping or preparing for a long lunch or later nights stopped and stared. Mobile cameras were raised. Kellie. Ciara. Mona. Louise. First names that have found a way into the heart and soul of Irish sporting life through their deeds in the ring, on the track, in the pool, on the pitch. Fingers pointing at them, shouts of recognition from women and men, girls and boys stopped in tracks.
The Irish Times/Sport Ireland Sportswoman of the Year Awards were celebrating a 20th year since its inspired conception and the mood inside the old ballroom of the hotel was festive and celebratory with those honoured rightly enjoying their moments, a time to acknowledge and be acknowledged with mutual respect from one sportswoman to another.
“The greatest collection of women in Irish sport in one place ever assembled, there is greatness everywhere,” is how Master of Ceremonies Des Cahill of RTÉ informed one and all of those present.
Some, unfortunately, couldn’t make it. But there were good reasons. Swimmer Róisín Ní Riain, the double medallist at the Paralympics, had a college exam. Sevens rugby player Lucy Mulhall is on honeymoon. Katie Taylor was unable to attend. Rhasidat Adeleke was away with her sister Latifah.
But Rhasidat’s mother, an emotional Ade, stole the show in accepting the monthly award for May on behalf of her daughter and of her pride, while revealing the heartache of seeing her daughter come so close – fourth – to a medal at the Olympics.
“Can you feel the love?” Des asked her.
“I know,” she replied, the tears coming.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have a tissue,” whispered Des.
Silence, though, was a rare commodity on the day that was in it with Olympic double medallist Kellie Harrington showing the way in whooping and hollering as European 1,500 metres champion Ciara Mageean was called to collect her June award for her magnificent victory in Rome.
Ciara was one of the very few who hadn’t donned high heels. Having undergone surgery on her ankle three months ago, the more comfortable – and sensible – option of trainers were the Co Down star’s choice of footwear.
First things first, however, Ciara – following Ade to the stage – spoke through the crowds and the round tables to Rhasidat’s mother.
“I can sit here as a 32-year-old athlete and say that Rhadisat is so young and we all know the future that she has in the sport, it is so bright so I know that even when my spikes are hung up I am going to be watching her bringing medals home,” said Mageean, to widespread roars of approval from those gathered.
Of her own moment of glory in Rome, Mageean – who seems to have a smile permanently fixed to her face (unless, as Des reminded us, she’s pitchside at a hurling match!), revealed that it’s not all glamour. She’d to go for a drug test post-final and by the time she got out to her family the celebrations involved “cold pizza and a can of coke.”
Mageean has moved back home to Ireland and has no plans to hang up the spikes just yet, as she revealed: “I am looking forward to this next chapter on Irish soil. I have my eyes firmly set on getting ready for the World Championships in the summer and another four year cycle towards LA (for the 2028 Olympics).”
Katie Taylor couldn’t make it but another Katie – the legendary Katie-George Dunlevy – certainly was, in a year of years where she overcame a shattered shoulder blade to recover and win Paralympic and World gold medals in taking the award for September. If that was a great year, it was made even better in being named along with her pilots Linda Kelly and Eve McCrystal as the recipients of the Team of the Year award.
The broad range of sportswomen excelling on the international stage is, surely, quite extraordinary. Rachael Blackmore’s win in the Champions Chase at Cheltenham – her mother Eimir revealed she’d gone to the restrooms and put on the hand drier so she couldn’t hear the race, only emerging for the final few fences – added to her great career CV, while Louise Ní Mhuircheartaigh’s brilliance in the Kerry jersey in leading her side to the All-Ireland title after 31 years was celebrated in her August award.
“Gorta mór,” said Louise of the time away from the Brendan Martin Cup.
This, for sure, was another celebration of Irish sportswomen where, it seems, the bar is raised ever higher each year.
And in accepting her award as the Sportswoman of the Year, Harrington, another with a tear in her eye, had a special word for all of the mammies of Ireland. “Win, lose or draw, just keep on doing what you are doing (in encouraging daughters to achieve in sport) ... because it’s great!”
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