A SEMINAR on developing tourism and sport in the southwest hosted by the US ambassador to Ireland, Daniel Rooney, heard calls for the region’s rowing and basketball facilities to be promoted as training bases for US teams in the 2012 London Olympics.
Dozens of US college basketball teams have already used Co Kerry and some 21 college teams have used basketball facilities in Killarney, the seminar heard.
The top table at the event included the chairman of Tourism Ireland, Hugh Friel, the new chief executive of Tourism Ireland, Niall Gibbons, and Kerry County GAA board chairman Jerome Conway as well as Mr Rooney.
Kerry was just one hour from London by air, Killarney councillor Niall O’Callaghan said.
It had great rowing and basketball facilities and the Killarney lakes could be used for relaxation and for training in the run up to the Olympics. The Co Kerry meeting was the fifth county meeting hosted by Mr Rooney since his arrival in Ireland, because he wanted to hear from people on the ground, he said.
Mr Rooney, who piloted his own plane into Kerry airport on Tuesday morning, said he had selected tourism and sport for the theme in Kerry given the county’s football record.
In the month since his arrival in Ireland as US ambassador, two questions come up at every event he has attended, he revealed.
“These are when is president Obama going to come, and when are the Pittsburgh Steelers coming,” Mr Rooney said after several requests from the floor in Tralee yesterday.
Mr Rooney, who owns the Pittsburgh Steelers, the current American football Superbowl champions, said Mr Obama really wants to come to this country and he “definitely” would be here some time.
Bringing the Steelers was not solely his decision, but a Steelers game in Pittsburgh was worth between €8 to €10 million to city businesses, Mr Rooney revealed. They played here in 1995.
Members of the Kerry team including Colm “the Gooch” Cooper met Mr Rooney at the start of the seminar.
The ambassador urged the seminar to put together a strategy to use the young athletic men as ambassadors for their county.
“These young lads that were here can really be ambassadors for you,” he urged.
Mr Gibbons said key markets going forward for Tourism Ireland were the German and British markets and the US market.
The island as a whole received just under one million US tourists annually.