Inside Track: Dundalk continues to be well served by its athletes

It’s important to have high-achievers, in the sporting world as much as anywhere else. They bring honour to their families, their own bailiwick and their country. People look up to them, especially the younger set.

Dundalk has had its fair share over the years, winners at home and on the international field. Encouragingly, the production line is showing no sign of slowing down. Indeed, it could be said to be ramping up.

Let’s go back about fifty years. Back then the town was going through difficult times. The Troubles were rumbling on, and because of its proximity to the border, these parts were more in focus more than most others in the South.

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It didn’t help when a BBC reporter visited, took a look around and hung the name El Paso around the town’s neck. He wasn’t paying a compliment.

The father figures did their best to counter the colour in which the town had been painted. But still El Paso rang out, not in the dulcet tones of Marty Robbins.

If ever a sporting hero was needed it was now. Up steps Stephen Staunton, first of all with Liverpool and then in his country’s green.

The euphoria that gripped the country as Italia 90 played out would be hard to explain to anyone who wasn’t there to experience it.

Armagh was awash with tangerine-and-white last year – 35 years ago, it wasn’t just a single county, but the whole country, and the colour was green. Shops closed and ale houses bulged when there was a game coming up.

It was with a sense of pride that Dundalk people looked on as Staunton’s left foot fitted perfectly in the best-performing team to ever represent the country.

He would feature in two further World Cup finals, the only player not to miss any of his country’s 13 matches at this stage. El Steffo had shouldered El Paso over the sideline.

Before fast forwarding to the last few years, recognition has to go to Paula Gorham, a pioneer in ladies’ football, local and international – and to the indefatigable Colette O’Hagan, who has run more marathons than most of us have had pasta for dinner, or whatever else is part of an athlete’s diet. Fully deserved was O’Hagan’s place at the head of Dundalk’s St Patrick’s Day parade.

Spoiled that we now might be, let’s not make a choice, but instead wave the flag for all with a address in around the town who’ve had, and continue to have, their names in headlines.

Amy Broadhurst may be waiting for an even bigger day than she ever had in the ring, but in a recent interview she said she hadn’t given up hope of getting back in the ring.

A multiple champion, world included, the Dundalk girl has harboured dreams of becoming an Olympian since she was very young.

She was denied the opportunity of going to the Covid-delayed Seoul Games, and last year missed out on the trip to Paris, first as an Ireland representative, and later as a member of the England team.

Let it be the shamrock or the red rose she’s wearing, Broadhurst will lift the town’s spirits if she climbs through the ropes in Los Angeles in three years’ time.

Two others hoping to be on the plane to America are Kate O’Connor and Israel Olatunde. It’s odds-on O’Connor getting there if she stays free of injury.

She competed in Paris, and since then has mastered the boards, her performances in the Europeans and Worlds in Holland and China, respectively, winning her deserved recognition not only in her hometown and country, but from BBC television, which is not known for its effusion when it comes to Irish performers.

Olatunde can claim to be Ireland’s fastest man. He went quicker than anyone before him when winning the Irish Indoor 60m dash, and since then has competed successfully in the same discipline and on the field, winning a number of titles.

He’s now under the care of one of America’s top coaches, and if making the expected progress as he gets stronger and more experienced, he should be in a green singlet in LA.

Wouldn’t that be something else, O’Connor, Broadhurst and Olatunde heading across the Atlantic, maybe in the case of the latter, just travelling overland?

By the time the flame burns brightly and the five rings flies high, Jimmy Dunne might have a trip to the States, or two of its neighbours, Canada and Mexico, behind him.

If Trump doesn’t mess things up, it’s in these three countries where the 2026 FIFA World Cup finals are taking place, and beginning in the second half of this year, the Republic of Ireland open their bid for qualification.

The powerfully-built Dunne made his international debut last Sunday week, coming in as a reserve in Ireland’s 2-1 Nations League defeat of Bulgaria.

The Blackrock lad is a fixture on the Queens Park Rangers Championship side, and that can only improve his chances of future International recognition. 

Yes, lots for townspeople to reflect on with pride, and look forward to with keen anticipation.