Olympic dream is driving on remarkable Galway athlete

Talking Sport with Stephen Glennon

THERE is something about Knocknacarra teenager Jack Colbert, who recently took home two silver medals from the IPC European Para Powerlifting Championships in Hungary, which just strikes a chord.

The talented para-athlete is quite simply a remarkable young man. Given Colbert has been in a wheelchair since birth, on one level that may come across as patronising. Yet, far from it. Colbert knows no other way of life and his ‘can do’ – or ‘enabled not disabled’ – attitude is an inspiration.

It doesn’t take long to realise that this guy is the real deal. In addition to taking those silver medals at the recent powerlifting games in Hungary, Galway Speeders member Colbert has enough colours from gold to bronze on his résumé to light up an Olympic Games arena.

For example, just last year, he competed at the IWAS (International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports Federation) World Junior Championships in Stoke Mandeville and secured a gold medal in the shot putt and a silver in the discus. He also missed out on the bronze medal by just one centimetre in the javelin.

A number of Irish titles in the various field disciplines also adorn Colbert’s CV – he is an accomplished basketball and table tennis player as well – all of which mark him out as a very talented para-athlete. And yet, for all that, it has been left to him and his parents Ger and Jacinta to fund his sporting ventures.

“There is no assistance,” says his father Ger. “It is family funded – all coming out of our own pockets. My wife Jacinta works in the HSE – as a clerical officer – and I work in the Jes as a SNA. The Jes has been very good to us with time off school and helping Jack with his work after he returns from competitions.”

With the costs of being an international athlete taking their toll on the family, they would love if Jack could procure the support of a sponsor. “It is a great opportunity for a company to get involved with him because he will be a major paralympian at some stage. He will be at an Olympics,” states Ger.

Indeed, given Jack’s meteoric rise to the top of European powerlifting – he only took up the sport earlier this year – one suspects that if he should continue to improve at a similar rate, the sky is the limit for the Leaving Cert. student.

It was on the back of another good showing at the 11th IWAS World Junior Games in Stadskanaal in the Netherlands back in July – winning a plethora of medals in field events across the board – Colbert got the call from Irish powerlifting coach, Ken Hurley from Cork.

“He (Hurley) was interested in getting me involved in powerlifting if I was willing or wanted to give it a go. I said I would go and meet him anyway and said I would hear what he had to say. So, I took it up from there.”

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