Gold standard important but Irish sport's positive impact must be measured too
Olympic medallist Mona McSharry takes a selfie with fans at the Dublin homecoming after the Paris Olympic Games. Pic: ©INPHO/Ben Brady
There’s a lot of measuring in sport.
Kate O’Connor carefully maps her high jump run up in the pentathlon, Lisa O’Rourke’s boxing coach measures her hand speed, swimmer Daniel Wiffen analyses his stroke length.
But by any measurement, Irish high-performance sport has enjoyed a remarkably successful period as of late. In 2024 our athletes won 112 high performance medals: 48 gold, 21 silver, and 43 bronze.
Of course, while we all like medals, we do ourselves a disservice if that’s our only measure of success. Sometimes we have to pan out from the numbers to get a sense of the bigger picture.
Medals are handed out at the end of the event, but the process that gives the athlete a chance at climbing the podium starts long before the starting pistol is ever loaded.
In Ireland there’s an entire system funded by the Government and led by Sport Ireland to allow athletes to perform to their maximum potential.
Sport Ireland provide leadership, but achieving success demands collaboration and alignment. The National Governing Bodies (NGBs), the Paralympic and Olympic Federations, the third level sector and many, many others play vital roles to ensure that Team Ireland becomes more than the sum of our parts.
High Performance Programme Funding is the central component of Sport Ireland’s investment in high performance sport.
This funding supports National Governing Bodies (NGBs) to deliver their high-performance programmes, which includes training camps, international competitions, centralised training costs, staff salaries, and senior and pathway athlete supports.
In 2025, €27million will be invested – the highest level so far. Just to put that into context, in 2018 that figure was €14m.
The 2025 investment puts us on track to achieve the targeted investment levels of €30m during the lifetime of the National Sports Policy 2018-2027.
Multi-annual funding is an important aspect of our high-performance strategy, with the package increasing from three years to four, covering the full Olympic/Paralympic Cycle (2025-2028).
That will enhance the operational efficiency and planning capability of our sports organisations, by allowing strategic investment decisions to be made every four years.
Sport Ireland will establish the Performance Development programme, which will allow for a more comprehensive but controlled approach to sports which have talented athletes and/or smaller or early-stage performance programmes. This will help sports such as judo, pentathlon, taekwondo, basketball, weightlifting, and squash.
Investment under High Performance Coaching will increase from €1.2m in 2024 to €1.5m in 2025 and Sport Ireland remains committed to investing in the recruitment of talented individuals to key coaching positions.
In 2025, Sport Ireland will invest €4.5m under the International Carding Scheme and the Player Funding Scheme. This will support 131 athletes and 11 relays/pool funding across 16 sports.
The Sport Ireland Institute provides world-leading services to Ireland’s high performance carded athletes.
We remain committed to supporting senior athletes at a level that is appropriate for their stage of development, and in a way that enables them to progress.
At the heart of our thinking is something that is more challenging to measure but which is of vital importance to us – athlete welfare.
I was an athlete myself and know how challenging elite sport can be on not just physical health but also on mental, and emotional well-being. Athlete well-being is a core pillar of the High Performance strategy. Success cannot come at any cost.
Athletes are supported through several key initiatives: a maternity policy, an Athletes' Lounge on the Sport Ireland Campus, a Sport Ireland-funded Athlete Support Manager offering independent guidance on welfare and integrity, and the Athlete Career Transition (ACT) program.
The ACT program, launched in 2022, provides financial and service support to retiring athletes, guaranteeing at least 50% of their carding award and has supported 53 athletes across the Paris Cycle.
A lot of work has been done but we need to continue to evolve. Reflection on what has worked well and what needs to be improved is vital in this regard.
The Paris Cycle Review emphasised the need to strengthen support for pathway athletes. Over the Los Angeles cycle (2025–2028), we will work with NGBs to enhance athlete pathways, ensuring a robust pipeline of Irish talent with targeted support at critical stages of their development.
Irish high-performance sport is coming out of a very successful time, with several significant performance successes and key strategic milestones hit.
As we look ahead to the Los Angeles cycle and beyond, we recognise that the true measure of our success extends beyond medal counts.
While podium finishes will always be celebrated, our benchmark is the holistic development and well-being of our athletes.
We will continue to refine our approach, using both quantitative metrics and qualitative assessments to gauge the effectiveness of our programmes.
From tracking performance improvements to measuring athlete satisfaction and post-career success, our goal is to create a comprehensive framework that ensures Irish sport not only produces world-class performances but also nurtures well-rounded individuals prepared for life beyond competition.
In this way, we're not just measuring athletic achievement, but the lasting positive impact of sport on society as a whole.
