There’s a thing about overnight success that it’s always invariably built on many nights, and days of hard work, setbacks that you learn from and support where it is needed.
When Ireland’s sporting medal count on World and Olympic stages moves up to the next level it will no doubt be hailed as a golden era, a generation of fine athletes, the like of which we may not see again.
The vision laid out by Sport Ireland at the opening yesterday of the new High Performance Centre at the National Sports Campus though was of a mission to ensure that excellence is the norm rather than the high point.
“The most important and the most challenging area of high performance is about relationships,” said Gary Keegan, Head of the Institute and architect in chief of the thinking that has gone into the High Performance Centre.
The physical elements of that include a 60 metre indoor track, a strength and conditioning area that that is open and free flowing, medical suites separated only by a glass wall from the main building and a ‘social ecology’ space where athletes can rest, chat, fuel up with advice from the onside nutritionist and work on those relationships with coaches and fellow athletes.
The facility has cost a total of €4.7 million and was completed in only 18 months.
“The Institute of Sport has been on a journey since before Beijing in 2008 and this is a significant milestone in bringing the different strands of what we have been aiming for in high performance together,” added Keegan.
“Our mission is to be world class in what we do, to innovate to get an edge, to share ideas across the best coaches, to learn from the experiences we enjoy or endure and to realise the full potential of the athletes who use our services.”
Keegan originally came from the world of boxing and the plan is that the Olympic team, now under the guidance of Zaur Antia at least until through Rio 2016, will be relocating to the Campus for training within the next few weeks.
There will be five full rings in the boxing area, perhaps ironically the only space in the Centre that is walled off, and the value which the boxers and other athletes will gain from a closer working relationship should be exciting to watch.
They will mix with runners, throwers, Paralympians and Rugby players. Divided by disciplines but united in a desire to be at their best run sport when it matters most.
The High Performance centre is the latest in a growing list of great achievements at the Campus, a fact paid tribute to by Minister Paschal O’Donohoe yesterday who expressed the thought of many when saying how surprised he is every time coming across some new element of the Campus in person as opposed to just in briefings or on plans.
Under Dave Conway as CEO and Sean Benton as Chairman the Campus has spread its footprint in a way that has to be seen to be believed.
The floodlights now stand like sentinels over the GAA pitches on the left.
The Republic of Ireland will train here as they prepare for Euro 2016, on the most advanced grass and synthetic pitch surfaces that exist anywhere in the world.
The first phase of the new National Indoor Arena is rising like a giant and will be complete in November of this year with a full indoor athletics track that can sink into the ground to provide a Championship standard competition space for multiple sports; a gymnastics area and plans for full indoor synthetic surfaces that will enable soccer, rugby and GAA to have year round, weather independent training options.
Tenders have been published for the velodrome and national Badminton Centre and this will genuinely be the finest multi sport facility in Europe within the coming years.
See the ambitious plans Sport for Business has for making 2016 a year to remember
See the ambitious plans Sport for Business has for making 2016 a year to rememberGovernment has supported this ambition with money where needed and most importantly the gift of 520 acres of land between the M2, M3 and M50.
The new unity between the Campus and the Irish Sports Council will see further advantages in terms of streamlined thinking fostered by a recognition of excellence in achievement from a management point of view that filters through to facilities and athletes and coaches.
Speaking to Sport for Business yesterday Sport Ireland Chairman Kieran Mulvey suggested that “future funding could come, with the agreement of Government, by the sale of peripheral packages of this land with the money ring fenced to further the development of facilities.”
Dublin Institute of Technology and Dublin City University both have lands adjacent to the campus and new partnerships might form there without compromising either the independence of the Campus or the amenity itself.
Any money raised, estimated at perhaps in the tens of millions, could go towards the completion of plans already on the drawing board or the development of accommodation facilities, perhaps in partnership with a hotel chain, that would lift the Campus onto another level internationally.
That could see Ireland become a European centre of excellence for high performance teams in a way that La Manga captured many years ago. We would not have the warm weather but with the facilities that are already in place and planned that will be immaterial.
There has never been a better time to be an elite athlete in Ireland. That is exciting in many ways from a performance and an inspiration perspective.
Image Credits: Morgan Treacy / Inpho.ie
