WINTER OLYMPICS: EVEN BEFORE she and team-mate Claire Bergin arrived in Canada for these Winter Olympics, Aoife Hoey was planning ahead, targeting "a top-10 place at the next Games", which will be hosted in 2014 in Sochi, by Russia, writes Mary Hannigan.

Vancouver, then, she is determined, will not be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, rather just the beginning of her Olympic journey.

“The British have done it, so why not,” said the 26-year-old from Portarlington, dismissing the notion that only the traditional powers in winter sports can reach the elite levels.

Making ground, though, on the elite in her sport, among them Germany, the US and Canada, remains a formidable challenge for the former national triple jump champion, not least because of the advantages they enjoy on every level, including quality of equipment, training facilities and funding.

Understandably, Hoey has long since tired of the comparisons with the Jamaican Cool Runnings team that made it to the 1988 Games, but the sight of her training with a “dry sled” in Santry, a “rusting” men’s bob from the 1998 Nagano Games, confirmed just how difficult the journey was to Vancouver, and what an achievement it was to qualify.

The Olympic Council of Ireland, though, helped significantly along the way, investing in a “state-of-the-art” sled that allowed Hoey and Bergin to seriously compete internationally.

Whether that top-10 placing in 2014 is a realistic target will largely depend on that level of support continuing.

Whatever happens, making it to Vancouver and achieving the improbable – an Irish team among the top-20 bobsleigh teams in the world? – will vindicate for Hoey her decision to dedicate herself to her sport over the last decade.

“Effy Hoey,” BBC commentator Paul Dickenson called her as she lined up with Bergin for the first heat in Vancouver.

By the time she’s done with her sport she will trust that her name is a touch more familiar.