For a non-Olympic year, 2017 may not have any immediately conspicuous sporting events for Irish women to chase medals or create their own headlines in. But try telling that to these five; on the ever-widening landscape of women’s sport, they’re just some of those poised to leave their mark on the national and international stage.
Kellie Harrington (Boxing)
“I never take anything for granted,” says Kellie Harrington, on her not insignificant move in weight division from 64kg, at which she won the World Championship silver medal last May, to the lightweight 60kg, and not just for 2017 but preferably all the way to the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
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Indeed Harrington might feel she still had plenty to achieve at the 64kg light welterweight, especially considering her quite stunning arrival at those World Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Admitting herself that she was a “nobody” going out there, she rolled with the bigger punchers and then took them out, beating opponents from Lithuania, Germany, the home favourite and a Canadian before losing to China’s Asian champion Wenlu Yang in the final.
It was a spectacular debut from the 26-year-old from Glasnevin in Dublin, a seamless, transformative step up in class, even more so given the fact she’d achieved it with minimal funding, while also working at St Vincent’s Hospital in Fairview.
The only drawback is that 64kg isn’t a women’s Olympic weight – not yet anyway – and her next most suitable weight, 60kg, was of course ruled by Katie Taylor.
Only things changed both during and after those Rio Olympics, as Taylor surrendered that title in her opening bout, and later moved on to the professional ranks.
With that development, Harrington saw her opportunity. Her physique and fearless boxing style is certainly well suited to 60kg, even if there will inevitably be some adjustment required.
Hence the cautionary note, consolidated by the knowledge that the landscape of women’s amateur boxing is still changing fast (competitive bouts from now on taking place over three three-minute rounds, rather than two four-minute rounds).
And to qualify for any of the international tournaments in 2017, Harrington must first win the national title at the Irish Championships, starting on February 3rd.
Harrington’s new voyage, however, is justifiably exciting, perfectly reflected in the way she blossomed in each of the rounds at those World Championships last May, emerging stronger and brimming with confidence after every contest.
If she brings even a small slice of that to 60kg then Irish women’s amateur boxing may soon have found itself the perfect successor to Taylor, and again preferably all the way to 2020. Let the games begin.
Ciara Mageean (Athletics)
That image of Ciara Mageean hurling herself over the finish line at the European Cross Country in Italy last month, in an utterly exhausted 31st place , wasn’t the preferred way to end 2016, yet it was telling nonetheless.
She had, in every sense, given her all, completing an otherwise hugely rewarding year with the promise of ever better to come in 2017 – ideally at the World Athletics Championships back at the London Olympic Stadium next August (4th- 13th).
This time last year Mageean was one of the forgotten names of Irish athletics, or in least in danger of being best remembered as one of those great juniors who never quite fulfilled their potential.
She was last seen on the major stage at the 2012 European Championships but a bone spur in her heel had necessitated major surgery. There followed a long and lonely lay-off.
Within weeks of the new season she’d lowered the Irish Indoor mile record to 4:08.66, then announced her outdoor re-emergence in style with a bronze medal over 1,500m at the European Championships in Amsterdam.
Mageean followed that with a brilliant run in her first round heat at the Rio Olympics, and while the wheels came off a little in her semi-final, she wasn’t finished yet. At the Paris Diamond League, she improved her 1,500m best to 4:01.46, knocking five seconds off her previous best.
Only Sonia O’Sullivan’s national record of 3:58.85, set in Monaco back in 1995, is the now ahead on the Irish all-time list, and breaking that record is certainly one of Mageean’s ambitions for 2017 – the sort of time which would most likely see her through to that World Championship final in London.
With tickets selling fast for those World Championships – already billed as the track farewell for Usain Bolt, and possibly Mo Farah too – they will likely prove one of the sporting highlights of the year.
For Mageean, who turns 25 in March, they’ll also come as she approaches her athletic peak, all of which makes for exciting times ahead.
Closer on the horizon are the European Indoor Championships in Belgrade in March (3rd-5th) which definitely present the possibilities of another medal.
Mona McSharry (Swimming)
Now that Mona McSharry has got her Junior Cert out of the way she can presumably focus on bigger things in 2017, such as the World Swimming Championships in Budapest in July (14th-30th).
That’s no lofty ambition given the magnificent splash the 16-year-old made in the pool in the year just past.
Swim Ireland had no hesitation in giving McSharry the junior performance of the year award after her displays at the European Junior Swimming Championships, also staged in Hungary, last July.
The Sligo teenager, who swims with the Marlins club in Donegal, won silver in the 100m and bronze in the 50m breaststroke, also finishing sixth in the 200m event.
She’d already broken two Irish junior records earlier in the year (including Gráinne Murphy’s at 200m breaststroke), won five titles at the national senior championships in April (three in one day), and competed at the European Senior Championships in London in May (all while studying for her Junior Cert at Coláiste Cholmcille in Ballyshannon).
Oh yes, and she was just one second short of the Rio Olympic qualifying time in the 100m breaststroke.
More recently, during the winter short court season, she won seven Irish senior titles and set five new junior records.
She added another two records at last weekend’s Ulster Championships.
Those World Championships in July are clearly within touching distance, the technical breaststroke also both demanding and allowing her considerable room for further improvement.
Her rural background, living in Grange village at the foot of Ben Bulben, and within 3km of Streedagh Strand where she first learned to swim, is what sets McSharry apart.
That the Marlins club in Ballyshannon Leisure Centre is also just only 20 years old, and with only a handful of elite swimmers, makes her breakthrough season even more remarkable.
She trains around 11 hours a week, mostly before school, with one evening session and two extra hours on Saturday, and with that Junior Cert now out of the way, 2017 could be the year she starts really making waves.
Aisling Moloney (Camogie/women’s football)
Between the outright triumph of their hurlers, and the heroics of their footballers, no county enjoyed more dual success in 2016 than Tipperary – and in rising underage star Aisling Moloney, there is evidence to suggest both women’s codes are in equally rude health.
Moloney may have concentrated on football at county level in 2016, but that didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy some considerable success in camogie as well.
Indeed that may well have provided the highlight, when, last March in Croke Park, she played a starring role – scoring 0-5 – to helped Cahir claim the All-Ireland intermediate title, beating Galway opponents Eyrecourt 0-14 to 1-2.
It was a memorable on several counts, not least the fact that 17 members of the panel were involved when Cahir lost the women’s intermediate football final, by two points, just three months previously.
All Moloney’s five points came from play, and she was well supported by close friend and club captain Aisling McCarthy, who also epitomises the commitment and passion behind the club’s sudden rise from relative obscurity – consider Cahir were playing junior ‘B’ camogie just four years ago.
In July, Moloney also played a key role in Tipperary winning their first women’s Munster intermediate football title, beating Clare 1-16 to 1-13, again representing a massive leap forward for the county.
Tall, red-haired and rangy, Moloney can shift seamlessly between full forward and centre forward, she is also equally deft and accurate off both feet.
Unfortunately for them, Moloney’s key role in the team was highlighted when injury prevented her from featuring in the All-Ireland semi-final, also against Clare, who came through the back-door to secure a one-point victory on this occasion.
Clearly, however, that won’t the last we’ve heard of Moloney, no matter what code she focuses on from here on.
Natalya Coyle (Modern pentathlon)
There was a telling moment at last month’s
The Irish Times
/Sport Ireland Sportswoman of the Year awards for 2016.
As impressive and entirely justified each of the 12 monthly winners were, with the 16 nominees in total across 10 different sports, it seemed strange that Natalya Coyle hadn’t made the list.
“I figured I’d give the August award to Annalise Murphy,” said Coyle, with brilliant deadpan humour.
This was of course reflective of two things: Murphy’s silver medal in sailing in Rio last August – which earned her the outright women’s award for 2016 – meant there was only going to be one winner that month.
Yet in any other year, or month, Coyle’s seventh-place finish in the modern pentathlon in Rio, also one of the Irish highlights of the Games, would surely have earned her a nomination too.
Now more than ever Coyle can prove that modern pentathlon isn’t just one of those sports that roll around once every four years, because 2017 presents plenty more medal winning opportunities, all building towards the World Championships in Cairo in August (21st-28th).
She’s also lined up two World Cup events in May, and there’s also the European Championships in Belarus in July (17th-24th).
Along with her Irish team-mate, Arthur Lanigan-O’Keeffe, there are also fresh opportunities in the mixed relay event.
Coyle and Lanigan-O’Keeffe won World Cup gold together in Florida last summer, and the mixed relay event could yet feature in the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo (that decision being made in March).
All told then, 2017 will bring even more fencing, shooting, running, swimming and showjumping for the 26-year-old from Meath, whose seventh-place finish in Rio improved on her ninth place at London 2012.
If anyone can demonstrate that modern pentathlon can create sporting headlines and gain recognition outside the Olympics, then Coyle can, and this might well be the year that happens.
