When Ireland's Olympic athletes step out behind the flag in Sydney, Australia, in five weeks' time, the Connemara communities of Spiddal and Inverin will have eyes on one alone, canoeist Eadaoin ni Challarain.
That Connemara should produce a world-class athlete is one achievement. That a family steeped in GAA should spawn a canoeist who has become Ireland's first female competitor at Olympic slalom is another entirely. Eadaoin, a 24-year-old medical student, sees no mystery in it at all.
She blames it on her father, Mr Breandan O Callarain, a school principal from Moylough, Co Galway, who qualified in outdoor education some years back when he attended a course at the National Adventure Centre at Tiglin, Co Wicklow. "He brought a canoe back to the house, and we began paddling when we were young."
Being the only girl among four boys, she didn't have much choice, but she loved it. "We would head off with the school, Colaiste Cholmcille, in Inverin and then we would also run rivers and take to the sea kayaks at weekends." Her eldest brother, Lorcan, did a lot of paddling before GAA took over. Four of the family qualified as canoeing instructors.
Now Lorcan and Micheal are members of the Galway senior football team, while her younger brother, Breandan, is on the Galway minor football panel. A fourth brother, Ciaran, has just finished arts in Galway, while Rose, her mother, who is originally from Buttevant, Co Cork, is the team manager back home.
It was while at university, where she began studying medicine, that Eadaoin starting competing at inter-varsity level. She won the women's open singles in two separate Liffey Descents. After a period in flat-water racing, and the relatively new disciplining of "play-boating", slalom began to interest her.
Her neighbouring river, the Boluisce, has no shortage of white water when supply isn't restricted from the lake above. However, she realised she would have to move to Dublin to train on the Liffey if she wished to pursue it with intent.
Given that she has only been paddling slalom for the past 4 1/2 years, her progress to Olympic selection is nothing short of remarkable.
"Well, I came late," she says. "and my first lesson was an Irish Canoe Union manual, because there was no slalom paddling over in the west."
She decided to take a break from her studies and spent three years training full time, with much of it based on an artificial course in Nottingham, England, along with Irish Olympic paddler, Ian Wiley, and latterly in Europe.
Her best result was seventh in the World Cup series in Slovenia last July and she has spent the last couple of summers competing in World Cup series. Last year she also paddled in New Zealand and based herself in Sydney for the first five months of this year to familiarise herself with the water-sports "stadium" at Penrith. "So I know the river well. It is man-made, in a quarry area, but the course will only go up the night before the Olympic event."
The dedication has cost her and her family, but she couldn't have done it without support from the Spiddal and Inverin communities. "There was a lot of local fund-raising, and during those times away when funds were tight it was great to get that surge of goodwill from home."
The RTE sports commentator, Micheal O Muircheartaigh, was fear an ti for one such event, when Frankie Gavin, Alec Finn, Eleanor Shanley, Dordan, Frankie Lane, Charlie Lennon, Eilis Lennon, Johnny Connolly, Johnny Og Connolly, Ronan Browne and others played at a session in the Connemara Coast Hotel in Furbo.
NUI Galway and Galway Vocational Education Committee awarded her a sports grant, and one of the city's outdoor pursuits specialists, River Deep Mountain High, has financed all her equipment. Raidio na Gaeltachta is also among her list of backers, and she appears - paddling, tumbling, breaking out and rolling - in a video made to publicise its new web link.
Other local sponsors include the N-17 Business Park on the Galway road. Through the Irish Canoe Union and Sports Council funding, she was able to avail of the expertise of elite coach and British international paddler, David Crosbie.
She believes the Sports Council focus on elite athletes is at the expense of the talent coming up at developmental stage. "The funds and support for training are needed most then." She has been struck by the cultural difference in Australia. "It is how many sports you do, not what one, and you are no oddity if you are into outdoor pursuits."
The Irish Canoe Union's chief executive, Mr Michael Scanlan, says her focus, determination and sense of purpose demonstrate how anyone, and particularly women, can make it to Olympic level.
"In canoeing, the standards are so harsh that it is incredibly difficult to qualify. You have only one opportunity, the 20 minutes spent competing at the World Championships, after years of training, and that makes it really hard."
Out there to root for her will be her parents and two of her four brothers. She is already looking beyond September, however. After it is all over, she will resume her medical studies at college on the Corrib.