What next? Let our homecoming Paralympic heroes savour the here and now
Linda Ríain, Games medalists Pic: Katie And Mccrystal Erford Kelly, Dunlevy, Róisín Crombie Paralympic George Paris ©inpho/james Eve Ní Orla
Homecomings are actually neutral ground. A Paralympics or an Olympics are fields fertile for debate. Performances, funding, structures and a whole host of other variables are all fair game for examination under the most powerful of microscopes.
If that focus dims with every closing ceremony then it doesn’t disappear in the weeks and months that follow. Reviews get published, State money gets distributed and so the noise, the constant hum of topics, goes on year on year.
All that pauses when an Irish team walks through the arrivals door at Dublin Airport.
The medallists appear front and centre, for the snappers and the camera crews. Athletes have spoken in the past about how hard it can be bringing up the rear, but there is an obvious priority on squeezing the last column inches and air time on the evening news.
The families and friends had arrived early and in bulk, their green jerseys dotted around the food outlets in Terminal 2 around lunchtime, gravitating towards the gates for the 2.30 arrival time and then waiting patiently for another 90 minutes until their loved ones appeared.
‘Superstars’, said one homemade banner. There was a ‘Team Ellen’ flag, a ‘Team Brady’ t-shirt and a Donegal flag all sprinkled through the front row. Three generations, at least, of humanity giddy for their first glimpse.
Ireland’s proximity to Paris meant many of the 35-strong Paralympic team had strong support in the French capital while they competed. Róisín Ní Ríain, who won a silver and a bronze in the pool, put into words just how important that was.
“The buzz and the noise out there was absolutely incredible. Having so many of my friends and family being able to come over and watch really did make it so much nicer: to come out to a crowd with people cheering for you before your races.
“A really special feeling and that made it even more enjoyable, for me and for them. It made it an incredible experience. And to be able to do it with my teammates around me that supported me as well definitely meant a lot.”
Just 19, this was Ní Ríain’s first experience of a Games. She spoke of “going home to chill” which might be more elusive than she thinks as her community absorbs its new star back into its orbit.
Katie-George Dunlevy knows how this goes.
Paris was her third Paralympics and the third where she medalled. Her gold and two silvers on the bike with Linda Kelly brought to eight her personal collection of podium visits but she looks at them now as individual chapters rather a collective tome.
“Every medal means so much and is its own journey, and that’s what I love so much about sport. You have challenges along the way, highs and lows. To get to the top is hard but to stay there is harder. This means so much.
“My first Paralympic medal was incredible and special and we didn’t really expect it. To then defend it in Tokyo and defend it again now, it’s the thing of dreams really, the thing you dream of as kids. It’s just about dreaming big and going for it and, if you fail you fail, but just go for it.
“Hopefully I have inspired children, children with disability and visual impairment that you can get through obstacles and barriers and that you can achieve. And also the LGBT community because I am gay and I came out at the age of 29. So if I can give hope to anyone out there then job done. And uplift the nation as well. So, job done.”
Everyone walking into that terminal wore the same Team Ireland gear but brought home a different story. Ellen Keane was walking onto Civvy Street at the age of 29 after a wonderful career. More again had already declared an intention to travel on again to LA in 2028.
This wasn’t the time for looking forward, or back.
The Olympics wasn’t yet done earlier this summer when Simone Biles, fresh from adding four Olympic medals to the seven she had already earned, called on the media to stop asking athletes the ‘what next’ questions.
Give us time to soak this one in first, she asked.
“Yeah,” said Dunlevy, “because we had that straight after Tokyo about Paris. If you think about it, you’re thinking, ‘Well, what about what we have achieved here? My journey to that and these medals and celebrating this’.
“So, yeah, that question I can’t really answer because Eve [McCrystal] and a few others know that they’re not going to continue. For me I’m not sure. I need to look at a few things so I want to enjoy this with my friends and family.
“We have a few things this year already: there is a homecoming, a ball with Paralympics Ireland, so I just want to enjoy the moment and share the medals with the children because I am going to go around the schools.”
And enjoy the moment. If only briefly.