Who runs the world? Irish sportswomen! The women of Ireland have truly made their mark in the sporting world and have made 2018 one of the most phenomenal years in Irish sports to date! Between the sleuth of talented young athletes to the extraordinary achievements of the Irish hockey team, Irish sportswomen are leading the way and are finally gaining the recognition they so rightly deserve.
This Summer has seen Irish women at the forefront of immense success both at home and abroad. Kellie Harrington has added the cherry on top of a fantastic year with her recent gold medal winning performance at the AIBA Women’s World Boxing Championships. Her stunning ascent to glory has been comparable to that of national treasure Katie Taylor, and she sets her sights on the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. At the European Championships, Molly Scott, Gina Akpe-Moses, Ciara Neville and Patience Jumbo-Gula made history in their capture of the silver medal in the u21 4x100m team relay. At the same meet, Sommer Lockey from Donegal won silver in the high jump, and 15-year-old Adelake came home with gold following the u18 200m. While many people didn’t even know Ireland had a women’s hockey team, their stunning success story culminated in their winning of a World Cup silver medal and has opened the floodgates to a previously untapped following. Slowly but surely, this talented crop of young Irish athletes is gaining the recognition they deserve, and we will certainly be hearing plenty more from them in the future.
At home, Croke Park saw record attendance for the All Ireland Ladies Football Final, with over 50,000 fans watching the ferocious battle between Cork and the victorious Dublin, and the standard of play in both Gaelic and camogie is rising every year. The age-old argument that men’s sports are ‘better’ than women’s simply doesn’t hold up any more. All you need to do to prove this is to tune into RTE or TG4 and watch a match; the skill, fitness, and utter dedication these women display is evident in their performances on the pitch and makes for some seriously exciting viewing.
This is a historic time in Irish sporting history. In October 2018, the Federation of Irish Sport introduced the 20×20 initiative, a campaign aiming to increase media coverage, attendance and participation in women’s sports by 20% by 2020. While 5 years ago this would have been extremely difficult, now there’s finally a strong chance of achieving it. Between soccer, boxing, rugby, basketball, swimming, athletics, hockey and much, much more, it’s a truly been a fantastic year for women’s sport in Ireland.