Can the former hockey gold medallist and the OCI president Pat Hickey come up with the winning formula to put more Olympic medals on the Irish table, asks Johnny Watterson.
There are those who believe that the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) only becomes significant once every four years; that the function of the council is to book athletes for the Olympic Games and arrange pre-event training camps; that it is an ephemeral organisation that pops up occasionally for a public spat and then disappears back into out-of-eyeline slumber.
Other organisations keep a high visibility through a variety of ways: the Football Association of Ireland through the hiring and sacking of managers and some spectator-friendly infighting, the GAA through its sheer strength of character and its vast influence on Irish life, and the Irish Rugby Football Union through its old-school-tie pragmatism. But the OCI appears every fourth summer like an old relative from abroad, wielding a rubber stamp and shouting loudly.
Recently the public disputes that used to be the hallmark of the OCI have all but vanished and its relationship with both the Irish Sports Council and the Minister for Sport John O'Donoghue have greatly improved. Still, it is not difficult to recall the issues for which the OCI previously made the headlines. There were the titanic presidential battles during which the man in situ, Pat Hickey, showed his political wiliness in the shocking ease with which he saw off challengers.
Other dogfights included Hickey versus Bernard Allen TD, followed by the longer Hickey versus Dr Jim McDaid series. Heavyweight bouts, all of them,and it is Hickey who is still here, moving up the the ladder in the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Then there were the stripping scenes of 1996, when Sonia O'Sullivan, in the tunnel at the Atlanta Olympics, was told to take off her competition clothes because of a festering dispute between the OCI and the Athletics Association of Ireland over what brand of gear to use.
There was also the whimpering of the athletes after the Sydney games of 2000 and the subsequent report criticising the OCI's dealings with the athletes' village.
But most of all the public remember the lack of medals at Athens 2004 - apart from Cian O'Connor's gold, which was subsequently taken away from him. The rowing team and showjumpers aside, there was never really any belief that the country would or could put an athlete on an Olympic podium. Perhaps unfairly, this state of affairs seems to have been blamed on the OCI, although it has not in the past been directly responsible for the preparation of athletes.
The recent peace accord along every warring front has been maintained for long enough now to suggest that it is genuine, but this week's announcement that the OCI has appointed the current British Olympic Association (BOA) deputy chief executive, Dr Stephen Martin MBE, to fill its first chief executive position suggests that the OCI is gearing up for a more sustained and professional campaign over the next two years and, more importantly, in the run-up to the 2012 London Games.
MARTIN'S EXPERIENCE WITH the British Olympic organisation has been on the performance side and although he was deeply involved in the successful bidding process that earned London the 2012 event, his main function at organisational level was as head of the performnace unit.
His responsibilities covered a range of jargon-laden areas, all of them focused on getting athletes onto podiums: the provision of services to Olympic athletes, team leaders, support staff, the medical institute and the technical department. He was also Team GB deputy chef de mission at two Olympics, the 2000 winter games in Salt Lake City and Athens 2004, as well as being a hockey medal winner himself at two Olympics.
As part of the British Olympic team, Martin competed in Los Angeles (1984), Seoul (1988) and Barcelona (1992). The team won bronze in LA and gold in Seoul, but when Martin captained the British team in Spain, the squad had peaked and ended up sixth.
While his experience as a player and latterly as a sports administrator has been with British teams, Martin's ties with Irish sport are equally strong. He captained the Irish hockey team more than 30 times and earned 135 caps, playing in three European Championships and a World Cup. He is remembered on the Irish team as being single-minded, ambitious, and prepared to put the work in to achieve his high aims.
From bangor, just outside Belfast, Martin went to the local grammar school before going on to study physical education at Jordanstown college. He then dipped his toes in the administrative side of sport for the first time, taking a job with the Northern Ireland Sports Council.
Married to Dorothy, with two children, he has been commuting to the British Olympic Association (BOA) offices in London from his home in Holywood, Co Down, for the past seven years.
"There was a very strong response to the advertisement for the job of chief executive. People from all over Irish sport and Irish business showed an interest," says an OCI spokesman. "There were a lot of heavy-hitters who wanted the job and a lot of people would have been disappointed that they didn't get it. But we have since had a meeting with all of the sports and they can see a great advantage to this appointment."
THE OCI ALSO argues that it is far from a once-every-four-years organisation and maintains that the workload in recent years has increased spectacularly. Over the past three years, it has received a total of €1.5 million from the Irish Sports Council, in addition to funding from the IOC.
"The work of the OCI has trebled in recent years," says the OCI spokesman. "There was an important need for a full-time chief executive. There has been a huge growth in winter sports, and with the European Youth Olympics coming on the scene, the sheer volume of work has become enormous.
"A guy like Stephen is invaluable to have. He's done all of this with the BOA, a much bigger organisation than the OCI. His role there would have been much broader than in the OCI but he will be a very important catalyst in making sure everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet with his knowledge of high performance. The Olympic medals he won in LA and Seoul are a bonus. He knows it from all sides, from the deputy chef de mission in Athens side, from the high-performance side and from the athletes' side."
Martin will report to the board of directors, of which Hickey, as president, is in charge. In the politics of the arrangement, Hickey will be Martin's boss, which some observers believe will be a challenge in itself for the new chief executive. Hickey is highly regarded in the international movement and has influence at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, but he is also known as a figurehead who likes to do things his own way. He has a strong personality and can be confrontational, though he is able to generate a great deal of loyalty from those who work with him closely.
Martin is more reticent and speaks with a soft suburban Belfast accent. The two men are outwardly quite different, but both are driven by a strain of can-do ambition. As a player, Martin was an impressive amalgam of skill and toughness.
How Hickey and Martin dovetail will be important. Whether the appointment can put more Olympic medals on the Irish table, we'll see in no less than six years' time.
The Stephen Martin File
Who is he?
Dr Stephen Martin MBE, the former Irish hockey captain, who also won a gold medal and a bronze with the British hockey team, and has been working as deputy chief executive of the British Olympic Association
Why is he in the news?
He has just been appointed as the first chief executive of the Olympic Council of Ireland
Most appealing characteristic?
High-performance expertise, which equals medals
Least appealing characteristic?
Uses sports administrators' jargon
Most likely to say?
"Thisis a real opportunity to work with talent and see if we can step it up to the podium"
Least likely to say?
"Do you want to see my Olympic gold medal?"