Keith Duggan talks to Pat Hickey, the president of the Olympic Council of Ireland
Although Pat Hickey, president of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI), is acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent political movers in the dangerous waters of international Olympics negotiations, he knows the limitations of his native land. And he also knows its strengths.
"If we use this properly," he said in a restaurant in downtown Turin earlier this week, "the London Olympics of 2012 could be bigger than the Ryder Cup for Ireland."
Dropping the tagline of the powerful, macho, intercontinental golf tournament is no accident. Nothing Ireland's Mr Olympics says is an accident.
In the Olympic power structure, words carry weight, and the Irish president has spent half a lifetime developing a reputation as a keen and perceptive Olympic administrator. He regards 2012 as "a swansong" from a personal perspective, but also as the fulfilment of an ambition, as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to see Ireland, a perpetually modest achiever in the vast Olympic family, shining for once.
"Look, this is as close as we will ever come to hosting the Olympics. For once, the big gig is right on our doorstep. That is an enormous opportunity in terms of countries using us as a training base and tourists stopping here as well. And it is a great chance to do something really memorable in the sporting arena - if we have the right programmes in place. That means identifying the athletes now and employing specialist coaches.
"And it means putting a stop to the piecemeal funding. We estimate we need about £3 million a year, or £20 million for the period, if we are to have a chance of winning medals in London. Otherwise, it just isn't feasible: it's a waste of time.
"But I am hopeful. (Sports and Tourism Minister) John O'Donoghue has seen it and he said he is going to go into Cabinet and fight for it. And the Taoiseach is a sports fanatic and has helped us out before. I am hopeful we will have a Government package in place in the next couple of months."
Although Hickey delivers this with the sheen of a practised pitchman, there is also a wistfulness in his voice. He has spent most of the last fortnight in Turin, tearing around the snow-covered Alps to follow the progress of the minuscule Irish team and escorting Minister O'Donoghue, Ossie Kilkenny, the chairman of the Irish Sports Council, and other Irish visitors around the power centres of the Winter Games.
After the Athens inquest - "Well, 'review' is the official term, but inquest is probably fair enough." - a bleak future was forecast for Ireland's next generation of athletes. It is hard to speculate where an Irish medal in Beijing might lie, and preparation time for London is finite. Identifying winnable events and acquiring specialist coaches is the immediate aim, Hickey says.
"New Zealand is the ideal. They win more medals per capita than any country, and in a variety of sports. Track and field, canoeing, equestrian, judo, sailing. And they have a national sport in rugby. Because they are isolated, they have to come all the way to Europe just to compete.
"Another country that impresses me is Slovenia. A place of two million people pulling medals - in winter and summer Games. If you examine their system, it is one of total government support, talent identification and a streamlined system. It is one that we will have to model ourselves on."
Mentioning New Zealand brings back memories of the preparation for Barcelona in 1992. Belfast boxer Wayne McCullough was one of Ireland's best prospects then.
"But Dermot Sherlock (OCI general secretary) was approached by the boxing federation, who were up in arms because the New Zealand Olympic committee had come to visit Wayne. They wanted to relocate him and his family, set them up with work and have Wayne train for New Zealand. We went to Bertie Ahern, who was Minister for Finance at the time, and we asked for aid, aside from the Department of Sport aid - which fell under the auspices of Education then.
"We said that this guy is going to win an Olympic medal in a black and white vest and we are going to be standing there like a bunch of Paddies. And in fairness, he gave us a budget that enabled us to get Nicholas Cruz as a coach and set up Wayne with a bursary, and to help with Michael Carruth as well. Going back that far, the benefits of having a specialist coach like Cruz were plain to see. And that needs to be replicated through all the sports now."
Hickey's sport is judo, and when he sees the level of coaching in that discipline he sometimes despairs.
"Guys who are not even black belts training. Guys we need to send to France or Japan, or else we are not going anywhere. And it is in sports like martial arts that future medals are going to come. We are not going to win medals in track and field or in the swimming pool. For instance, we have this guy Willie Caprani in taekwando. And he is a good prospect, but he is having terrible difficulty getting funding."
Hickey admits that even with money and coaching, success is not guaranteed. But he insists that, without it, success is now impossible. In previous Olympiads, Ireland have always had a lone, remarkable athlete, from Ronnie Delany to Eamonn Coghlan to Sonia O'Sullivan, to keep the hope burning of a podium place.
Now, medals are harder to come by and Hickey feels that, like Britain, it is time to go burrowing in the snow for precious metal. When Ireland entered a team into the 1992 Winter Games at Albertville, "We were laughed at". But affluence, and the popularity of snow sport holidays, have changed that perception. Vancouver in 2010 could be a significant year for Ireland's involvement in the winter Olympiad.
"The CEO is John Furlong from Dublin. He emigrated at 18 and made it big, and he has a huge base of Irish Canadians who are going to take Irish winter athletes over and train them. It is going to be a huge step up for our Olympians, because they survive on a pittance. You know, our ice hockey team go to Belfast to train.
"We have a couple of guys in Scotland in curling, and they might well be entered for Ireland in 2010. John Furlong has been amazing on this, and, much like London, it has fallen into our laps, if we take advantage of it."
Hickey has received strong interest from other nations interested in using Ireland as a base for London 2012. The US, Korea and several European countries want to come to look at "the facilities".
For Hickey, it is all smoke and mirrors.
"The joke of it is we are over in Beijing rejecting sites there. And we have nothing at home. Again, if we get programmes in place to have good training facilities up and running in the next couple of years, teams will want to base themselves here. Right now, I know if I brought a delegation around, they would say: 'Look, thanks, the few pints were great and that's as far as it goes'. We have to move on this. And fast."
