Analysis: The Irish success stories at the Paris Games show why investment in our elite-level athletes must continue to grow
It's the time-honoured question after every Olympic Games: how do you measure the value of an Olympic medal? For Ireland, Paris 2024 was the country's most successful ever Games: seven medals, four gold, three bronze, 26 top-10 finishes, all led by the nation’s largest-ever team of 134 qualified athletes.
After basking in the glow of two weeks of glory in Paris, the Irish public now has an appetite for even more success at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. There will be a growing number of kids eager to join their local sports clubs too, following in the footsteps of Kellie, Mona and Rhys.
After enjoying the spectacle of world-class Irish performances across swimming, rowing, gymnastics, boxing and athletics, the public is curious to understand how this success came about. More importantly, how we can keep it going in the future?
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From RTÉ Radio 1's This Week, president of the Olympic Federation of Ireland Sarah Keane on Ireland's most successfull Olympics ever
The conclusion of every Olympic cycle raises important questions about what we want the future of sport in this country to look like. Crucially, this concerns funding and how it should be allocated. Off the back of Paris 2024 - and to ensure its impact does not go to waste - many are asking if the Irish government should reassess its priorities in terms of its level of investment in sport and what areas deserve more attention.
Together, greyhound and horse racing received €95 million in state funding this year, which is the most investment from the government in any sport in Ireland. In comparison, high-performance sports were allocated €25 million in 2024.
A debate is slowly beginning to emerge over whether money being poured into industries like greyhound racing could be better spent on increasing youth participation in sport at the grassroots. Thereby ensuring there is a pathway to the elite-level for the next generation of Wiffens, McClenaghans and Adelekes.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's This Week, Minister for Sport Thomas Byrne on the resources needed to build on Team Ireland's Olympics success
Speaking ahead of the homecoming event for Ireland’s Olympic heroes, Tánaiste Micheál Martin announced that an additional €400 million will be invested in Irish sport. This includes funding for a new national velodrome and badminton centre. "It's an essential need for our sporting infrastructure in the country," said Minister of State for sport Thomas Byrne. "We will see a step change in facilities all around the country."
The joy of sport and the Olympic Games is the feeling that anything is possible, the underdog can succeed, that David can slay Goliath. Too often, this has been the prevailing narrative of Irish sporting success: the plucky underdog defying the odds because the ones holding the purse strings have stacked them against our own competitors.
When you analyse the Olympic medals table after each Games, the reality is that those countries who spend the most money on its Olympic programme almost always lead the standings. The countries who spend the most, win the most.
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From RTÉ Sport's Olympics podcast, glory glory Kellie Harrington
The United States (126 medals in Paris), China (91), Great Britain (65) and Australia (53) all devote significant resources towards ensuring their Olympians have the best training facilities, equipment, coaches, staff, accommodation and medal bonuses. The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee spent $327 million on athlete development in 2022. Great Britain provided funding of £275 million for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics. These vast spending figures emphasise just how impressive Ireland's position of 19th in the Paris 2024 medal table has been.
Sport's beauty lies in its unpredictability, but these high-spending nations leave nothing to chance when it comes to putting their elite-level athletes in the best position to achieve success. Which brings us back to Ireland’s success at Paris 2024. We can point to the development of the Sport Ireland Institute over the last two decades as one of the most pivotal reasons for Ireland’s record-breaking medal haul. The funding of high-performance centres in Dublin, as well as the National Rowing Centre in Cork, has been instrumental in delivering medal success. Added to this, elite coaching and leadership from figures like Skibbereen’s Dominic Casey in rowing and Zaur Antia in boxing have been decisive.
There is a direct cause-and-effect between a rise in investment in Irish sport, the development and expansion of the Sport Ireland campus in Abbotstown, an increase in salaries for Team Ireland athletes (via the OFI Paris Olympic Scholarships), and their subsequent achievements in Paris this summer.
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From RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime, report on the homecoming celebrations for Ireland's 2024 Olympians
Between 1960 and 1992, Ireland won six Olympic medals. Fast forward to the present, and in the short space of one week in Paris, Ireland picked up seven medals. The combined wins of Mona McSharry, Daniel Wiffen, Rhys McClenaghan, Phillip Doyle, Daire Lynch, Paul O'Donovan, Fintan McCarthy and Kellie Harrington marked what will likely go down as the greatest single week in the history of Irish sport.
The contrast between the quantity of Ireland’s medal haul in Paris and the many decades of occasional medal wins highlights the impact of investing in high performance facilities aimed specifically at developing elite-level Olympians. Ireland's 2024 medal winners and their achievements are a combination of generational talent paired with appropriate investment in that talent. By providing these Irish Olympians with the necessary salaries, coaching and facilities, they have been able to deliver the success we all witnessed in Paris. It’s no fluke.
In the past, Irish medals were significantly less common. Success by Irish sporting heroes like Ronnie Delany, John Treacy and Sonia O'Sullivan, amongst others, were outliers when you take into account their circumstances and environment. Their gold and silver medals should be admired to an even greater degree because they were anomalies that occurred in spite of a complete lack of investment in them from their own sport federations at home.
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From RTÉ's Chapters of Magnificence podast, Greg Allen talks to Sonia O'Sullivan about her appearances at the Olympics
Delany trained at Villanova University in the United States, as did O'Sullivan. "Villanova has always been a breeding ground for Irish athletes," she said. Treacy trained in America too, at Providence College in Rhode Island. Irish athletes needed to leave these shores to find the elite environment which would push them to the highest level.
This is still occurring today, as many of Ireland’s star Olympians are based abroad. McSharry trains at the University of Tennessee on a swimming scholarship. Wiffen is based at Loughborough University in the UK. Rhasidat Adeleke, star of Ireland’s athletics team, at the University of Texas. Ciara Mageean trains in Manchester, while cyclist Lara Gillespie trains in Mallorca because Ireland does not have a velodrome.
This all emphasises how there is more investment needed if Ireland wishes to build on Paris 2024 and make it possible for Irish athletes to thrive while training and developing on these shores, instead of feeling no option but to go overseas. The government’s announcement this week of more investment in Irish sport is a significant step in the right direction.
Such investment needs to persist if Ireland wants to build on the platform set by the country's inspirational Olympians
It is often easy to self-congratulate on the back of national sporting success. However, it is important to acknowledge that many of Ireland’s medals in Paris were forged thanks to coaching regimes abroad in the US and UK because there aren’t the necessary facilities and funding for our athletes at home.
What this summer’s Olympics has shown, however, is that long-term strategies like the Sport Ireland Institute do pay off. Such investment needs to persist if Ireland wants to build on the platform set by the country’s inspirational Olympians who delivered unforgettable sporting memories and a record medal haul in Paris.
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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ
