Free Born to Perform by Gerard Hartmann

should be at their beck and call.
    Working at several World Championships and the past five Olympic Games as a backroom staff member, I always put the athlete first. They need to be given every opportunity plus the platform and support to enable them to perform at their best.
    When I travelled with teams in the early 1990s, the administrators and medical staff often got priority seating and accommodation, and this infuriated me. As an athlete, I saw firsthand how athletes were treated and I had a good yardstick when I travelled to international competitions and shared notes with athletes from other countries. The “blazer brigade”, as I called them – the officials and administrators on junkets for their own gain – are thankfully in the minority nowadays, as sport on the international stage has become such big business. It is highly competitive and results are what count.
    After the European Triathlon Championships in Denmark, I was interviewed for a feature article in the 1985 Triathlon Ireland Annual magazine, and my quotes at that time summed up my sentiment:
    My experience in Denmark showed me that an Irish triathlete striving to reach the top is only bashing his head against a brick wall in comparison to the opportunities afforded to my counterparts on the continent. I was amazed to hear a Swedish competitor who finished six places behind me say that he was a full-time triathlete who spends upwards of seven hours training daily and belongs to a heavily sponsored team along with [getting] support from the national triathlon federation. My feeling from Denmark was that the standard will continue to rise and unless Ireland’s top performers are given some assistance in terms of sponsorship or financial assistance then our standard in top competition will drop even lower.
    In ways, nothing changed for many years, and the ongoing dilemma for some athletes is the same now as it was then. Athletes need most support on their way to the top. Once he or she has reached the top ten in the world in his or her chosen sport, the Government steps in and gives out the maximum funding of €40,000 per year – but the athlete who reaches that level already has commercial sponsorship deals, and prize money to boot. It is at the stage when the athlete shows potential, and is on the way up, that finance and coaching and medical support are most critical.
    In my seven years as Irish triathlon champion, I never had any input from the Irish Triathlon Association. The association worked on an administrative level only, and it felt to me as if the athletes were inconsequential, mere bit players. That was most unfortunate as there was so much potential. In the 1980s, Ireland had international-level potential in Ann Kearney, Tom Heaney, Noel Munnis, Kevin Morgan, Erwin Cameron, Eamonn McConvey and Eugene Galbraith – all very accomplished athletes, but they had to fend for themselves.
    The net result in any sport where there is no performance structure in place is that top results do not happen. World-class high-performance sport in the 21st century is now an intensive, exhausting occupation where athletes are fully embroiled in sophisticated training regimes, utilising scientifically developed technologies that create long-term physiological and personality changes, as they progress through the higher levels of the sport to the ultimate prize of an Olympic gold medal. Lord Sebastian Coe, a double Olympic 1,500-metre champion and one of the finest sports administrators around, is a man I greatly admire. I meet him on occasion through my work, and I always listen intently to what he has to say. He has his finger on the pulse. When the Great Britain Olympic Team, of which I was a backroom member, had a hugely successful Olympics in Beijing in 2008, Coe stated:
    What we have witnessed here is the amalgam of good administration within governing bodies, world-class coaching, elevated levels of funding and hungry and