Tags:“DREAM BIG WORK, HARD AND NEVER EVER EVER GIVE UP”
There it was on the Finn Valley AC facebook – popping up to announce Sinead Jennings and Claire Lambe had qualified for an Olympic final in the lightweight women’s double sculls. In doing so, they became first female crew from Ireland ever to do so. As I said: ‘Dream big, work hard and never ever ever give up.’
[adrotate group=”38″]Sinead, from Letterkenny, is one of our own. I watched her at a distance as she grew up swimming, cycling, participating in triathlon, athletics and rowing. This girl is now in an Olympic final. I wanted to shout it out: ‘In the Olympic final!’.
How absolutely class is that? Sinead had a fire burning within her to be an Olympian. She missed out until this year, even though she was world lightweight sculls rowing champion in 2001. That’s because the discipline was not on the Olympic programme.
I remember how I wanted to be at the welcome home reception for her 15 years ago. I just wanted to say: ‘Hi Sinead. That’s some achievement in a global sport.’ Unfortunately, it didn’t happen because I wasn’t there. To be honest I didn’t know the homecoming was even on as nobody had said it to me.
But it doesn’t matter. Having not made it to Athens or Beijing, I thought her dream was over there and then by 2008. Caitriona, her sister, qualified for marathon in London 2012. Minutes after her placed was confirmed, she called me. At the time I was coming up the road through Termon.
[adrotate group=”81″]When I got the news I was like a maniac in the car. I was just so excited. Why? Simply, it was because she comes from Donegal. It’s always special to me when the neighbours like her could join me on my journey.
What of Sinead in 2012? Well, she was pushing close to qualifying in cycling. Yes! Cycling! But it didn’t happen.
That’s it then. Forget it. Accept it. But there was no way you were going to get into the psyche of this young mother of three. There will be another opportunity: Rio 2016. Sinead moved to Cork, now with three daughters and of course, a supportive husband in Sam Lynch, who competed in two Olympics himself as a rower.
[adrotate group=”37″]Sinead qualified the boat with her partner Claire Lambe – that’s the way it works. She was later confirmed and is in this village downstairs from me right now, preparing for an Olympic final, which takes place tomorrow afternoon
Let’s repeat it: ‘Dream big, work hard and never ever ever give up.’
In my world I’m a day away from the athletics kicking off and all these individual athletes, who collectively form this Irish athletics team, have dreamed and worked towards being on this line since they were children.
In some cases, it’s been 20 years in the making. All their stories are different but in some ways the same. There’s family, club, community, coaches and sometimes no money and no acknowledgment. But you know it’s always going to be about the person.
It’s going to be about staying in the real world. It’s about influences and above all, not giving up, being respectful and quietly knowing where you want to be. There is no Plan B.
Mark English is on the track for us tomorrow in the 800m heats.  His road to Rio began at Woodlands National School and tomorrow, he is on the biggest stage of all.
Later, thankfully, the Donegal connection is continued with Tori Pena in the pole vault and Brendan Boyce competing in the 50k walk. How exciting is that?
Letterkenny native Enda Doherty, who works for Adidas, with Letterkenny’s 800m runner Mark English and Patsy McGonagle in Brazil today
Mark and I travelled to the Adidas hospitality on arrival here in Brazil as he needed to check out with his sponsor about new spikes. There, we checked in with Adidas’ Europe lead athletics man, Enda Doherty from Lurgybrack  in Letterkenny. He, of course, looked after us like he always does.
The Donegal connection continued later yesterday as along came Richard Simms from Milford, who used to wear the Finn Valley AC vest and is involved in the management firm who look after Usain Bolt.
Much has been written about ‘Ricky’ as they call him. He has 19 of his athletes in competition here in Rio. It’s great to see young men like this grow up from childhood doing so well in this athletics business.
[adrotate group=”46″]At the same time they remember they were given an opportunity and they took it. Not everyone does.
Grainne O’Dea from Raphoe will join us tomorrow. She’s another girl that began when her mum Nora dropped her off to training as a nine-year-old and Grainne now works with PACE – Ricky’s company in London. Kieran Carlin, our photographer, has also arrived so the FVAC team are here in full force.
There was no luck for Chloe Magee against world No 2 Wang Yihan in the ladies badminton today, but the Raphoe native is back on court in the early hours of Saturday morning against Germany’s Karin Schnaase.
I talked to the former Irish boxing coach Billy Walsh last night here in the food hall.
He’s happy as his US boxers, who he now coaches, are medalling, but our conversation mainly centered round a man who is not here: Jason Quigley.
And for the record, Billy Walsh’s opinion of Jason: Billy says Jason will become world champion. And he said that on a day when Jason is at Dallas Cowboys Stadium announcing with Oscar De La Hoya and the Cowboys team that he will fight there next month.
When I went back to the room, an email from Jason awaited me. It wished me and the Donegal folk good luck. He told me he’d just done a track session and he imagined that he heard me shouting at him!
He said it related to a dream he had the last night; that he turned up to train and I gave him a bollocking as he forgot his spikes!
[adrotate group=”76″]We had done some good work earlier in the year on the track and in the forest on the hills at home at Drumboe.
Donegal, with elite sportspeople at this level, is in many ways linked so strongly by the community in which we live and by who we are.
For me the road to Rio has been reached; so let’s go see what happens now!
