Women stars: Mary Hanniganlooks back at a great year for boxer Katie Taylor and all the nominees for Irish Times/Vhi Healthcare Sportswoman of the Year
'I train twice a day, morning and evening, from Monday to Thursday, once on a Friday, and then it's just running on a Saturday. Although most weekends I'm away playing tournaments," said Irish badminton champion Chloe Magee of her weekly schedule when we tracked her down to Jönköping, Sweden, in February.
Magee had left her home town of Raphoe, Co Donegal, and made the Swedish city, an hour from Gothenburg, her base. It's a lonely-enough set-up for the 18-year-old, but the first step, she hopes, in her journey toward the Olympic Games - whether it be the next one, the one after, the one after that, or "however long it takes", she said.
Why Jönköping? Simple enough. The local club, BMK Watterstad, is one of Scandinavia's best, and the coach there is Limerick-born Tom Reidy, who represented the United States in badminton at the 1992 Olympic Games. "And that's the reason I'm here," said Magee, "because Tom is the coach, I'm learning so much from him."
Actually, you get the feeling from Magee that if the best badminton coach available was a resident of the North Pole she'd book her ticket, don her thermals and set off. "I just want to be the best I can be, that's all."
She's getting there. In July, for example, she won her first international title, taking the doubles with Huan Bing, her China-born Ireland team-mate, at a tournament in New Zealand. The pair finished the year by winning the Welsh Open and Irish International Championships, lifting them to 14 in the European rankings. If they keep this up the Olympics might happen sooner than they dreamed.
Over a decade ago another Irishwoman moved to Scandinavia in pursuit of her sporting dreams. The journey this time was from Leixlip, Co Kildare, to Danish football club Fortuna Hjorring.
"But it was kind of the middle of nowhere," said Emma Byrne. "Everything was rural. I didn't know anybody there, it was a bit difficult, I got homesick. The food, language, everything - and everyone was on roller blades," she laughed.
The end of her footballing career? Not quite. A year later, in 1998, she joined Arsenal and she's been their goalkeeper ever since. Last season they won every competition they entered, a quadruple made up of the Premier League, FA Cup, League Cup and Uefa Cup.
They were the first English club to win the Uefa Cup, beating favourites Umea of Sweden, the only full-time professional women's team in Europe (and home of Marta, the Brazilian world player of the year).
Byrne kept a clean sheet in both legs of the final, reproducing that form for the Republic of Ireland, who at the end of the year are in a three-way tie on nine points with Sweden and Italy at the halfway stage of their European Championship qualifying group.
Magee and Byrne, though, largely go about their sporting work unnoticed, their rewards no more than the knowledge that they're closing in on being the best they can be.
Both women enjoyed a successful 2007, as did two more Irish sportswomen on the international front, Katie Taylor and Jessica Kürten.
Fortunately there's a "mercy" rule in amateur boxing, one that most of Taylor's opponents have had to have applied in their contests with the Bray fighter in the past 12 months - including three-time Pan-American champion Katie Dunn of Canada, who had the misfortune to meet Taylor in an exhibition bout before the men's World Championship finals in Chicago.
By then Taylor had won her third successive European Championship title in Denmark, a success that helped elevate her to the ranking of number one
"pound-for-pound" fighter in the world. If the International Olympic Committee ever get around to allowing women's boxing in the Olympics, well, get your open-top bus ready.
Kürten, too, had a profitable 12 months, finishing 2007 at four in the world rankings, although her ongoing battle with the International Equestrian Federation over her horse Castle Forbes Maike testing positive for a banned substance overshadowed the second half of her year.
If Kilkenny dominated hurling at home the county was also well represented at the World Athletics Championships in Osaka by hammer thrower Eileen O'Keeffe (right) and runner Joanne Cuddihy.
O'Keeffe won Athletics Ireland's Athlete of the Year in their inaugural awards for establishing herself as one of the world's leading exponents of the sport by finishing sixth in Osaka, in a year that also saw her break the 70-metre mark for the first time.
Cuddihy was also a record-breaker in 2007, becoming the first Irishwoman to run under 51 seconds for 400 metres, her time of 50.73 in the semi-finals in Osaka beating Karen Shinkins's eight-year-old Irish record of 51.07.
Back home Wexford, captained by the inspirational Mary Leacy, created the major shock in Gaelic games when they beat the favourites Cork, who were going for the three-in-a-row, to win their first camogie All-Ireland title in 32 years.
The Cork footballers, though, succeeded in their three-in-a-row quest, the ever-prolific Valerie Mulcahy once again outstanding. She had already scored 2-3 in the quarter-final against Dublin and 2-2 in the semi-final defeat of Laois, and she scored both of Cork's goals in the final victory over Cora Staunton's Mayo.
Staunton, though, ended the year on a high, her 1-11 in the All-Ireland Club Championship final against Cork champions Inch Rovers helping Carnacon to their first title in five years. By then she had collected the fifth All Star of her career for a season in which she led Mayo to National League success and won the Championship's Golden Boot award for scoring 4-46 in six games en route to the All-Ireland final.
In horse racing Nina Carberry won again at Cheltenham, two years after becoming the first woman jockey since 1987 to win a professional race at the Festival - and only the fourth ever. A minor blip kept her out of action for three weeks in November . . . if you call a broken collarbone a minor blip.
Also producing memorable performances in 2007 were Irish basketball international Marie Breen and the golfing twins from Cavan, Lisa and Leona Maguire.
In January, Breen captained Glanmire to victory in the SuperLeague National Cup final, her 29 points helping them beat reigning champions University of Limerick, who were going for their fourth title in five years. The 22-year-old from Mallow won the final's "Most Valuable Player" award for an outstanding individual display.
The 12-year-old Maguires were no less impressive back in May when Lisa reached the semi-finals of the Irish Close at Lahinch and Leona became the youngest ever winner of the Hermitage Scratch Cup - their opponents, even if only in their early 20s, must have felt desperately old.
These sportswomen, then, are our contenders for The Irish Times/Vhi Healthcare Sportswoman of the Year Award, the roll of honour to date made up of Cathy Gannon (horse racing, 2004), Briege Corkery (camogie and Gaelic football, 2005) and Derval O'Rourke (athletics, 2006).
What we already knew . ..
When Cora Staunton shoots she scores. No matter the angle. She was carrying an injury this year and wasn't happy with her form, which might explain why she scored only 4-46 in the championship.
The shame.
What we learned . . .
That members of the best women's football team in Europe, Arsenal, including one of their Irish internationals, staff the club's laundry, the highlight of their day (until he left) "washing Freddie Ljungberg's underwear" (anon). These women will only truly be equal when either (a) they earn £125,000 a week, drive Hummers and are surrounded by HABs (husbands and boyfriends) or (b) Cesc Fàbregas, complete with hairnet, has to launder Arsène Wenger's boxers on a daily basis.
What might happen . . .
The International Olympic Committee will finally give in and agree to women's boxing being included in the 2012 Games - if they don't they'll have Katie Taylor to answer to. And they're hardly that brave.
