Trinity Olympians Celebration
Public Theatre, Trinity College Dublin
6 June 2012
Olympians, Torch Bearers, Colleagues, Students and Friends, it is my great pleasure to welcome you here this evening.
Just over a hundred years ago, in 1908 – by coincidence when the Games were also in London – Trinity College athletes first participated in the Olympics. They distinguished themselves, taking home seven silver medals - six for the hockey team and one for tennis.
Today we celebrate over a hundred years of Trinity Olympians and we celebrate, for the first time, the Olympic Torch being carried through the streets of Dublin. This morning the Olympic Torch was met in Howth by President Higgins, before doing the tour of Croke Park and the city centre, where it went past Front Gate and along Nassau Street.
Thanks to Samsung, a presenting partner of the Olympic Torch Relay, three Trinity students, Áine Ní Choisdealbha, Natalya Coyle and Mark Kenneally, and one alumnus, Mark Pollock, had the honour of carrying the Torch.
These individuals were chosen to represent Trinity based on their contribution to the College community as well as their sporting and academic achievements. All four are exceptional: Mark Kenneally, a PhD student in physiology, has been selected for London 2012 in the Marathon, and Natayla Coyle, a BESS student, achieved the qualifying Olympic standard in China last week in Modern Pentathlon.
Áine Ní Choisdealbha has achieved the highest academic distinction and is honoured for her volunteering work in helping break down social exclusion and inequality – something which goes to the heart of the Olympic ethos.
Mark Pollock is an outstanding athlete who has competed in some of the world's harshest terrains, from the Syrian deserts to the North Pole. His triumph over adversity is a source of inspiration to all he comes in contact with.
Being chosen, among so many deserving people in this city to carry the Olympic Flame – that same flame which was lit in Athens two weeks ago - honours these four individuals' athletic prowess and their qualities as leaders. And it’s an honour for us, collectively, as a university – and is a reminder of the importance which sport holds, and historically has always held, in Trinity.
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This evening we pay further tribute with this reception for “Trinity Olympians” – those Trinity students who have participated in the Games over the past hundred years.
A total of 45 Trinity students have taken part in the Olympic Games since 1908, in sports ranging from water polo to boxing, fencing, and athletics.
Maeve Kyle, who is here tonight, became Ireland's – and Trinity's – first triple Olympian in 1964, at the Tokyo Games. Remarkably over the course of three Games she competed in the 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m! Her record of participation was only beaten by David Wilkins who is Ireland's – and Trinity's - most capped Summer Olympian. Between 1972 and 1992 he took part in five games and won a silver medal in Moscow in sailing with Jamie Wilkinson, another Trinity graduate.
Eleven medals have been won by Trinity Olympians at the Summer Games. At the Paralympics of 1984 and 1988, Ronan Tynan, who is also here tonight, won four Gold, two Silver and one Bronze, and was unsurprisingly awarded Outstanding Athlete of the 1984 Games.
Among the names of medallists I was surprised to see that of Oliver St John Gogarty in the 1924 Games. I think it was James Joyce who quipped that Gogarty was famous to his readers as a surgeon, and to his patients as a writer. I thought he had added another string to his polymath's bow – that of athlete – but on closer inspection, he won in the category of ‘Mixed Literature’, an event which has now been dropped…….
We cannot, of course, have Gogarty with us tonight but his grandson is here, and I'm delighted to say that of our 45 Trinity Olympians, fifteen are here in person and another four are represented by family members. Considering the timespan, that's a wonderful turn-out. I thank all of you for being here this evening, embodying the spirit of the Games.
I would like to welcome in particular our oldest Trinity Olympian, Robert Tamplin, who has waited 64 years to see the Games return to London, where he represented Ireland at Rowing in 1948.
We also have with us tonight three generations of the Bulger family – the grand-daughter, great-granddaughter, and great-great-grandson of Daniel Delany Bulger.
Daniel Delany Bulger was a distinguished late 19th century athlete and Trinity graduate. We remember him tonight because as Vice-President of the Irish Amateur Athletic Association he attended the Congress of the Sorbonne in Paris in 1894, which led to the establishment of the Olympic Games of the Modern Era.
Two years later the inaugural Games were held in Athens.
Thus, an alumnus of Trinity College played an integral part for Ireland in the inaugural Olympic Congress, lighting the flame, well over a century ago, that has travelled today through the streets of Dublin. This is a most precious connection, made palpable by the presence of his family here tonight.
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We celebrate our Trinity Olympians and we celebrate the great tradition of sport in Trinity – a tradition which goes back hundreds of years and which helps distinguish Trinity among world universities. Our Football Club – which of course is actually rugby football – is the world's oldest documented football club.
We celebrate and build on this great sporting tradition because sport allows humans to excel – to achieve their potential, and indeed go beyond what they thought possible, breaking through mental and physical barriers. The Olympic Games is of course the great testing ground of sporting excellence.
But of course reaching the summit of human achievement is only one aspect of the Olympic Games, and it's only one aspect of sport in Trinity. In the words of the Olympic creed, adopted in 1908:
“The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”
We encourage our students to get involved in sports and we invest in sporting facilities, not only because we are training elite athletes – and not only because science has proved the insight of the ancient Olympians, ‘Mens sana in corpore sana’ (although we know that sport makes our students healthier) – but because sport allows people to struggle, to achieve, to connect with others, to help others as well as to compete with them, to break down barriers, whether class, race, gender or disability based.
That's why we do our best to schedule our academic syllabus around sporting needs; that's why employers seek graduates whose college participation went beyond the lecture room to the playing fields; and that's why Trinity's four torch bearers represent not only sporting excellence but the spirit of social inclusion and triumph over adversity. These are the values I see in our Trinity Olympians. These are the values we have celebrated in this university for hundreds of years, and that we celebrate today.
Before concluding, on behalf of all of us here, I would like to wish Mark Kennelly and Natalya Coyle every success in the London 2012 Olympic Games. We are already tremendously proud of your success in qualifying for the Games.
Thank you very much.