O’Donovan helping to push issue of athlete welfare even more in challenging times
By Stephen Leonard
CARADH O’Donovan knows first hand the difficulties so many athletes are facing around the globe in their build-up to the Tokyo Olympics and the various qualifiers for those Summer Games during these hugely challenging times.
Herself targeting qualification in the sport of karate, the former World and European champion kickboxer with Tallaght Martial Arts, is also a member of Global Athlete- an international movement aimed at mobilising athletes in order to provide them with a stronger voice in their respective sports.
Caradh O’Donovan
Through this, O’Donovan and her fellow GA members are campaigning for a clearer picture to be provided for international athletes as to the organisation and viability of the Olympics.
“It has been mentally tough on athletes” insisted O’Donovan. “Every second day you have someone coming out saying the Games are going to be cancelled and then someone saying they’re not.
“We all want to see the Games going ahead, every athlete wants to see the Games being run, but we’d be putting pressure on the hierarchy to put in place something for the worse case scenario wherby, if they are cancelled, that it’s not just a case of ‘ok let’s look ahead to Paris 2024.’ All these athletes have worked so hard to get there.
“We’d also be looking for more transparency as to what the plan is to get all these 10-12 thousand athletes into Tokyo for the Games.
“While some would be aware of what’s happening, athletes don’t have a clue as to what’s going on and what the plan is to get all these athletes from 206 countries competing.”
O’Donovan, who previously lived in Clondalkin before moving to Terenure, has, herself, been facing major challenges in her bid to make the cut for Tokyo.
The World Championships that she had been hoping to contest in Dubai last November were pushed back by a year and the Premier League ranking event in Portugal for which she had qualified for the first time has been postponed from its original date at the end of February to April.
The venue for the European Championships in May has been switched from Sweden to Croatia, but O’Donovan is hopeful that date will remain in place especially given that the World Olympic qualifier is due to be held the following month in Paris.
Despite the restraints that have been placed on her training and preparation for these major competitions in 2021 by the fallout from the Covid crises, O’Donovan has remained upbeat and managed to keep things in perspective.
“Obviously with the restrictions we can’t have multiple training partners” she explained. “We’ve been give an exemption to train so we have to be respectful of that.
“We can have one training partner and one sparring partner and access to the gym is impossible so we don’t have that range of equipment to work on our strength and conditioning, but, look, that’s ok. We can’t be complaining.
“At the end of it all, sport is sport and there are more important things than that” she said.
O’Donovan will be hoping to eventually return to competition after a tough 2020 that was further complicated by surgery on her ankle that kept her out of action for some time.
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