Treacy warns of danger of cuts to sports...

Speaking at a sports conference in UCC last Monday, John Treacy, the chief executive of the Irish Sports Council has warned against cutting funding to Irish high performance athletes. In other countries where funding has been cut, there has been a major drop in performance levels.

Treacy, an Olympic Silver medalist in the Marathon in the 1984 Los Angeles games, said..."We have seen other countries where they were heading into the Olympic games and they cut off investment and the performances did drop. We can’t reduce funding because if we do we will have a drop-off in terms of performance. Our athletes will inspire our young people to take up sport and lead a healthy lifestyle.”

Another speaker at the conference, Prof Barry Houlihan, who specialises in sports policy at Loughborough University in England, said it was important to note that 80 countries that have participated in the Olympic Games have never won a medal. Considering the size of the country, Ireland has punched above it's weight in the past in terms of medals.