Winter Olympics Turin 2006: Clifton Wrottesley tells Mary Minihane about our progress in some unlikely disciplines
Remember Lord Clifton Wrottesley? The Eton-educated skeleton athlete (with a shamrock on his rear) who narrowly missed out on Ireland's first Winter Olympics medal in Salt Lake City in 2002?
Well, the "Sliding Peer" who hurtled head-first into the headlines in Utah is back as chef de mission for the upcoming Turin Winter Olympics. He's devoted the last few years to training hopefuls for 2006 and reckons a record 11 Irish athletes - including a women's bobsleigh team and a female snowboarder - should qualify for the Italian event in February.
Semi-retired Wrottesley says he'll be standing on the sidelines should Ireland require his services in the skeleton event, but insists he's unlikely to compete, having celebrated his 37th birthday last month.
"That puts me 16 years ahead of some of our younger athletes. I'm competing a little so I've kept my options open to a certain extent, doing enough races to qualify for the Games. There's a slim possibility I might have to step in, but I wouldn't put myself near a medal or in the top-10 ranking. One has to be realistic about these things."
Of course, part of the appeal of Wrottesley's unexpected moment of glory in Utah was the surprise factor that a country like Ireland - never likely to take the winter-sports scene by storm - could get close to putting it up to established giants like the USA, Canada and the alpine nations. He appeared to come from nowhere to reach the bronze-medal position after the first run in the skeleton but was edged into fourth place after a second, slower run.
He obviously found the experience more inspiring than intimidating. "If you can prick the bubble it turns out these guys aren't the sort of demi-gods you put them up to be. You can compete with them," he says.
But he concedes it can be demoralising for Irish athletes to witness the resources larger nations are able to put into funding their disciplines at such events. The winter-sports governing bodies are making efforts to standardise things, but there's still a long way to go. Compare the value of the Irish team's fibreglass bobsleigh - about 30,000 - to that of the Americans' Kevlar version at around 100,000.
Indeed, there were some cross words about Government funding after Utah. Pat Hickey, president of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI), publicly criticised the Government, the Minister for Sport and the Irish Sports Council, saying they had provided inadequate financial resources ahead of the competition. He was quoted to the effect he was laughed at when the Irish athletes entered for Salt Lake City.
ISC chief executive John Treacy angrily denied winter sports were discriminated against. Now it seems the relationships are looking a little healthier. According to Wrottesley, the OCI has provided 25,000 a year for ice sports (bobsleigh and skeleton) in the past which has "kept our heads above water". He says this amount will be doubled ahead of the Turin Games. Discussions are underway on the purchase of a new women's bobsleigh ahead of the Games.
Wrottesley also says the Irish Sports Council - the body through which Government funds are channelled - is releasing 15,000 shortly.
"It's a start," says Wrottesley. "On the one hand the ISC is showing a lot of willing coming in on that sort of level. It would have been nice to have had it slightly earlier in the four-year programme cycle, but we're happy with whatever we get."
THE ISC AND OCI provide additional funds for snow sports - snowboarding and alpine and cross-country skiing. Wrottesley is hoping corporate sponsors will provide financial support for the winter sports athletes, saying there have been "various nibbles, as it were", but nothing concrete.
"Frankly it's all well and good having decent levels of commitment from the Government and Olympic Council, but if you're going to have a realistic medal prospect you're going to have to throw other sources behind it. I did it off my own back last time and made a concerted effort to throw everything I could at it.
"My challenge to people is to look at what I managed to do with a non-athletic background, just two years in the sport, and I got to within a whisker of a medal. That's the gauntlet I throw down to corporate Ireland. If they got behind it, God knows what we could do."
Wrottesley visited Turin in March to attend a chefs de mission seminar ahead of the Games, which will run from February 10th to 26th. The city and its surrounding alpine villages are currently undergoing a frantic Barcelona-style revamp. He's tickled to learn there's a large a photo of him in his unmistakeable green, white and orange competition suit in an information centre in the middle of town. "I have to admit it was fairly colourful, the suit I was wearing."
Well-connected Wrottesley had it designed by a friend's dad who owns the German fashion label Escada. And the shamrock on the bottom? "That was my idea. I do have a rather prominent seat anyway," he chuckles.
Since 2002, Wrottesley has been concentrating on his other career as a financier - "Paying back all those bills I racked up in preparation for Salt Lake City."
He and Sascha, his half-Swiss, half-Australian wife now have a one-and-a-half-year-old son, Victor.
"We sort of got on with the family thing, my wife and I," he says.
And is Victor showing any early promise? "Sport has been very important in my life and I'd be very happy if he was equally as passionate about it. But if he wants to be a butterfly collector, so be it."
Born in Dublin to English parents, Wrottesley was brought up in Galway for a couple of years. When his father died the farm was sold and three-year-old Wrottesley moved to Spain with his mother. He went to Britain to be educated, attending Eton, Edinburgh and Sandhurst. His father frequented the famed Cresta Run in St Moritz and he pursued the skeleton - which for the uninitiated involves sliding belly-down on a track of ice on a board with runners - as a way of maintaining a link with his dad.
Wrottesley is not making any grand claims about Ireland's medal hopes for Turin, given the youth and relative inexperience of the potential qualifiers. Many of the reigning champions of winter sports are older athletes who've been on the circuit for years and attended numerous Olympics. For most of the Irish that make it to Turin, this will be their first time out.
He says he's taken advantage of the surge of interest in winter sports in Ireland following his performance in Utah to help build a team that could have realistic hopes of medals in Vancouver in 2010 and beyond.
The ice sports athletes won't have accumulated enough points to qualify until mid-January. (Athletes who have reached the qualifying standard are selected by the Irish Olympic Council.)
THE WOMEN'S bobsleigh team is piloted by 22-year-old Aoife Hoey from Portarlington, who also competes in shot put and triple jump. Her brakemen are her sister Siobhán (35), until recently the Irish triple-jump record holder and part of the team that just missed out on qualification for the last Games, and Jennifer O'Sullivan (24), the current Irish javelin record holder.
The men's team is piloted by 23-year-old Rory Hennigan, who lives in Canada. His brakemen are Terry O'Neill (30), a Dublin-born sprinter now in Boston, and Paul Kiernan (30) from Celbridge, who was at the last Games.
It's also hoped that an up-and- coming Irish skeleton athlete will qualify, the two most realistic prospects being David Connolly (26), from Wicklow, and 29-year-old Dubliner Patrick Shannon, one of the top triple jumpers in the country.
Four snowsports athletes are expected to make their way to Turin. Snowboarder Jen Grace (30), based in Montana, competed at this year's Snowboard World Championships in Whistler, Canada.
Rory Morrish (37) from Cork has an orienteering background, but became active in freestyle cross-countryskiing when he moved to Norway in 2001. He competed in the Nordic Ski Championships in Oberstdorf, Germany, in February.
Alpine skier Kirsty McGarry (20) from Dublin, is the younger sister of Tamsen, who was at Salt Lake City. She has been skiing since the age of two. And Thos Foley (25), from Kenmare, is currently Ireland's top male skier.
Other names being mentioned are Patrick Rayski and Ciarán Lee, both from Dublin.
