Some of us have been toiling in this business long enough to recall when the annual announcement of grants for Irish athletes was often greeted with angry shock or bitter disbelief. That was because of the lack of transparency and also the apparent lack of understanding of what athletes required to succeed at elite level. And those no longer considered good enough were seen to be shunted off the stage and into retirement.
The hope was they would go gently into the night. Though the last thing any athlete wants to be told is that their best years are behind them, and there will always be some rage against the dying of that light. It was not all about the money.
For some measure of how grim things were, go back 20 years. After the underwhelming show at the Athens Olympics in 2004, several long-serving athletes, including Sonia O’Sullivan, Mark Carroll, Karen Shinkins, James Nolan and Gary Ryan, had their grants cut to zero.
“Maybe instead of firing us, we should fire them,” Carroll told me at the time, referring to “the Blazers” in charge at the then Irish Sports Council. Nolan, only 28, was even more damning: “In a normal job that would be unfair dismissal,” he said, having had his grant cut just hours before he was to departed to South Africa for training.
Three-time Olympic rower Gearóid Towey also had his then top-tier grant of €30,500 cut to zero, describing it as “a big kick in the teeth”.
For those Athens Olympics, about €4.3 million was dished out in high-performance funding, including €2.1 million directly to the athletes. Later, as the Sports Council morphed into Sport Ireland, the funding criteria evolved so that athletes were more accountable for how the money was spent, with the national governing bodies (NGBs) also more focused with regards to performance planning.
So to Wednesday morning’s announcement at Trinity College in Dublin, where €27 million in high-performance funding – more than four times the 2004 amount after taking inflation into account – was divided among 16 NGBs for 2025, including six more NGBs on performance development funding. This included direct athlete support of €4.85 million, with 129 athletes plus 11 relays/pools named across 15 sports, with 29 receiving the maximum “podium” amount of €40,000.
Unlike 20 years ago, there was no word of dissent, not around Trinity anyway, although on closer inspection some athletes may have been questioning why their grants were cut or indeed not increased, why some podium grants were different from others, and why certain relays are now considered every bit as important as individual events.
The most curious shift this year is Sharlene Mawdsley, Sophie Becker and Chris O’Donnell each joining Ciara Mageean and Rhasidat Adeleke on podium grants of €40,000, essentially based on their relay showing. Mawdsley and Becker also qualified for the individual 400m in Paris, and with another €120,000 allocated between the mixed and women’s 4x400m relay, this puts them among the best funded of the lot.
Becker didn’t get any individual funding last year, Mawdsley and O’Connell have been bumped up from their “international” allocation of €18,000. Meanwhile, Phil Healy, who was part of the women’s 4x400m that won European silver in Rome last June and then finished fourth in the Paris Olympics, didn’t get any individual funding at all. At age 30, are her best years suddenly behind her?
It wasn’t made clear whether this new recognition for relay athletes is being driven by Athletics Ireland or Sport Ireland. Regardless, it certainly puts extra pressure on the relay athletes to perform in the build-up to LA in 2028.
Given the submission deadline for 2025 grants was more than two months ago, it wasn’t surprising Kate O’Connor and Sarah Healy both remained on the “world class” amounts of €25,000. Given O’Connor’s double indoor medal haul this month in the pentathlon, including silver on the world stage, and Healy’s gold in the 3,000m at the European indoors, both can expect to be moved up to podium class sooner rather than later.
It’s less clear if Mark English, who fell from podium to world class, a cut of €15,000, will be moved up too, even though his recent bronze medal in the 800m indoors, his fifth European medal in all, makes him the most decorated Irish male athlete of all time.
Some might also be wondering why some rowers were awarded a sort of second-tier podium grant, the men’s pair of Ross Corrigan and Nathan Timoney and women’s lightweight doubles Aoife Casey and Margaret Cremen each getting €30,000 in recognition of making their Olympic final. The danger here is to start comparing the actual competitiveness of different Olympic events, but to me making an Olympic final in the men’s 800m is a world apart from making the men’s pair final in rowing.
Perhaps the most glaring anomaly is the inclusion of Kellie Harrington, who retains her podium grant of €40,000 despite declaring to all those listening after she defended her Olympic title in Paris that that was her last bout. According to Sport Ireland, she hasn’t yet informed them, and even when she does she will still be entitled to 50 per cent of the allocation under the athlete career transition programme.
No one is denying Harrington is deserving of that transition support, it just looked strange when other athletes who retired last year, such as Thomas Barr and rower Sanita Puspure, didn’t feature anywhere.
There was some shaking and moving among the NGBs. All but one got a raise on last year, Swim Ireland going from €756,666 to €1.1 million to join Rowing Ireland as the best-funded sport in the new Olympic cycle. Athletics Ireland was also bumped up to €1.05 million to join the Irish Athletic Boxing Association as equal third.
Coaching support also increased from €1.2 million to €1.5 million in 2025, although no breakdown was provided there. While it’s clear Sport Ireland are going in the right direction there are still anomalies to be ironed out.
