Rob Heffernan’s World Championship gold in the 50km walk in Moscow was the greatest Irish sporting achievement of 2013, according to 1,000 respondents to the Pembroke Communications’ Sports Sentiment Index 2013 officially launched this morning in Dublin City Centre.
It was a tight year with 12% nominating Heffernan ahead of 11% who selected Tony McCoy’s 4000th career victory in November and 9% going for each of the Irish Women’s Rugby Grand Slam, Dublin All Ireland Football and Clare All Ireland Hurling victories.
The survey also reveals that Katie Taylor remains Ireland’s most popular sporting star, gathering that nomination from 25% of the respondents ahead of 15% who voted for Brian O’Driscoll and 6% for record breaking jump jockey Tony McCoy.
The 2013 Team of the Year category was jointly topped by the Irish Women’s Rugby team and the Clare All Ireland Hurling Champions. The irish Men’s boxing team came third with 8% of the votes after their success at European and World Championship level.
The most iconic sporting moment of the year was voted as having taken place away from the actual field of play with the appointment of Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane nominated by 13% ahead of Tony McCoy’s 4000th win and Rob Kearney’s try against the All Blacks.
The Sports Sentiment Index is in its fifth year under the ownership of Pembroke Communications. It is undertaken by Ignite Research and consists of a comprehensive 1,000 person nationally representative survey with quotas imposed on gender, region, age and social class.
It examines the attitudes of Irish people towards sport, their sporting heroes, participation levels, the impact of sport on the Irish psyche and the contribution sport is making to local communities.
Detail of the survey will be revealed at a special breakfast briefing for sporting and business leaders in Dublin today before many members of Sport for Business including the GAA, FAI, Cricket Ireland, Paralympics Ireland, Bank of Ireland, Dublin City Council and Inpho Photography.
It will be officially launched by John Treacy, CEO of the Irish Sports Council, and Sport for Business will be there to report live later this morning on other elements of the survey to emerge, including the Irish public’s support for the hosting of the Rugby World Cup in 2023.
“2013 was an interesting year for Irish sport,” said Mick O’Keeffe, managing director of Pembroke Communications.
“Without stand out international events like the Olympics or European Championships, the Irish sporting focus was shared across many sports and many moments over 12 months and this is reflected in the findings with not much between many of the categories and few runaway winners.
“Having had so many hard luck stories over the years and a number of fourth place finishes, everyone celebrated Rob Heffernan’s gold in Moscow. Heffernan’s story and indeed of his wife and coach’ Marian, who was pregnant at the time, really caught the imagination of the Irish public and obviously still does.”
