The curtain came down on the 2018 Para Swimming Allianz European Championships yesterday with Ellen Keane adding Gold to the bronze she won for Ireland on Friday night and the Silver won by 16-year-old Nicole Turner on Saturday.
The medals capped a performance from the eight-strong team that included appearing in 25 finals, recording 13 personal best and 21 season-best times.
From a sporting perspective, and make no mistake this is elite sport with all of the time, energy and effort devoted to it as any other, those are the numbers that matter most.
But sport at its greatest is always about more than numbers. It is about the swell of your heart as you realise that you are watching something special. The emotion of letting go in a way that you rarely if ever do in any aspect of life.
And it goes further it can change the way we look at our own lives, and communities as well as those of others we have alway perhaps viewed differently.
We are proud that Allianz are our partners on Sport for Social Good, and we will talk more about the power of their support of Para-Sport at our Conference on September 27th but sometimes the emotion of the moment captures it better than in the colder light of day.
We are grateful today to Allianz Marketing and Communications Director Damien O’Neill for this interview with Pundit Arena during the Championships that sums up the power of sport and what the last seven days have been like.
Sign up today for our free daily news digest covering the commercial world of sport or discover the benefits of becoming a full member alongside the many leading organisations whom we serve.
