No comeback on the cards for world silver medalist Olive Loughnane

Talking Sport with Stephen Glennon

Galway’s four-time Olympian walker and former World Championship silver medalist Olive Loughnane believes it is imperative women support other women in sport in order to grow and promote these activities among young girls.

Cork-based Loughnane, back in her native Galway to promote Kilconieron GAA Club’s Croagh Patrick sponsored climb in aid of Galway Cystic Fibrosis Hospital Project this Saturday, says she was fortunate to participate in a sport where men and women got “equal billing” but acknowledges this is not always the case.

“It is fantastic to be here this evening and see the Kilconieron [camogie] U-16s playing and the U-14s and U-12s training on the other pitch. That is good. The important thing though is that women support women’s sport as well.

“You know, the Galway camogie team was hugely successful last year but I would hope that girls are being brought to see that. Women must support women.”

Indeed, with attendance figures at most inter-county camogie and ladies football matches – among other sports – nowhere near that which their male counterparts enjoy, Loughnane reiterates it’s vital women get involved in sport on some level.

“I am helping out the senior camogie team in Aghabullogue with fitness but you know that [supporting women’s teams] is one thing the club is very conscious of. They encourage the younger girls to support the older girls and they organise buses whenever Cork are playing so the kids go to Croke Park and realise it is important to support women.”

That said, she notes that when she was competing herself – on the inside so to speak – it was not an issue she was necessarily aware of. “I suppose, for me, it was very different. I was in a sport where gender didn’t matter because female athletics gets equal billing as male.

“So, it never really affected me. I saw myself as a competitor, not a woman in sport. I thought of myself as a sportsperson,” says Loughnane, who still as the physique of a woman who could challenge for top honours at a major championship.

Indeed, with 40-year-old mother-of-two Jo Pavey (Great Britain) taking gold in the 10,000m at the European Championships in Zurich recently – the oldest woman ever to win a gold medal at the continental meet – it would be remiss not to encourage Loughnane into making a comeback.

“You are not the first person who has said that,” she laughs. “I said ‘no’ to that person as well because if I made a comeback everybody would know my age! You just didn’t hear Jo Pavey. You heard 40-year-old Jo Pavey! So, in the interest of discretion I have opted out.”

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.