It’s Sportswoman of the Year Awards day and it’s probably as well that Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, is no longer of this earth because if he browsed through the list of sports represented by the 2023 monthly winners – among them boxing, weightlifting, rugby and horse racing – he’d probably have a conniption.
Johnny Watterson reminds us that the French man wasn’t overly keen on women taking part in any sport at all, certainly not rowdy ones. The Olympics, he insisted, needing to be “reserved for men” for the “solemn and periodic exaltation of male athleticism” with “female applause as reward”.
Well, there’ll be plenty of applause today for the list of contenders for the overall Sportswoman of the Year award, Malachy Clerkin reflecting on the year and the achievements of our finest. “This generation of Irish sportswomen are unparalleled in what they have done,” he writes, “in what they consistently aim to do and, maybe most significantly, what they mean to people along the way.”
Sonia O’Sullivan looks back on the year too, and has a degree of sympathy for those tasked with picking the overall winner. “Like apples and oranges, it’s hard to compare the achievements of someone finishing fourth in the world in a footrace with a team player at the World Cup. Or a World Cup medal winner in the pool and the undisputed world boxing champion at two weights.” Too true.
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Among the year’s biggest stories in women’s sport was, of course, our football team playing in their first World Cup, the challenge now falling to Eileen Gleeson to see that the team builds on that achievement and makes qualifying for major tournaments a habit. Karen Duggan shares her thoughts on Gleeson’s appointment as manager, admitting that initially there was “a little bit of an eyebrow-raise” on her part when she heard the news, but she now sees plenty of positives in the choice.
In rugby, Nathan Johns brings news of another appointment, the IRFU announcing that Leinster attack coach Andrew Goodman will replace the departing Mike Catt as Ireland backs coach after next summer’s tour of South Africa.
In Gaelic games, Gordon Manning previews Dublin’s O’Byrne Cup campaign which gets under way on January 6th, while Paul Keane talks to Cork hurler Conor O’Callaghan about his hopes for the year ahead.
Shane Stokes, meanwhile, has confirmation that Eddie Dunbar will compete again in next year’s Giro d’Italia, while Brian O’Connor looks at the financial shadow over the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board after it failed to get the extra funding it sought for its anti-doping measures.
TV Watch: Ulster and Connacht square up in the URC this evening (TG4, BBC2 and Premier Sports 1, 7.35), while Aston Villa can go top of the Premier League if they beat Sheffield United tonight (Sky Sports Premier League, 8.0) – and that’s a sentence not even Aston Villa would have expected to be written in 2023.
