Annalise Murphy's bid for Tokyo Gold got a boost today with the Olympic Federation of Ireland announcement of details of its 2020 discretionary funding packages and sailing rewarded with the biggest handout.
The Olympic silver medalist from Rio is the only Irish sailor so far qualified for the postponed Games with men's Irish Laser and 49er skiff campaigns both looking for the last of the Olympic berths.
Murphy was nominated for the Radial class after a trial was cut short by the Irish Sailing Association in June.
The €80,000 announced today provides support for eight Olympic focused and development projects. Many sports had already exceeded the two-award cap placed on this Olympic cycle, making the number of applicants for this latest tranche of funding smaller than previous rounds.
Two winter-sports were awarded grants, reflecting the growing proximity of Beijing 2022.
The funding is entirely generated thanks to the support of commercial partners, primary sponsor, FBD, and OFI partners, Indeed and Circle K. The funding is designed to leverage and enhance Sport Ireland funding, helping National Federations to deliver new performance-related initiatives to support their athletes.
The OFI’s discretionary funding stream is separate to Olympic Solidarity grants to member federations and the 12 Tokyo and 7 Beijing athlete scholarship awards.
Today’s awards were made following the decision of the discretionary funding committee, chaired by OFI CEO, Peter Sherrard and composed of Tokyo Chef de Mission, Tricia Heberle, Sport Ireland High-Performance Director, Paul McDermott, and Independent consultant, Brian MacNeice of Kotinos Partners.
- Bobsleigh and Skeleton €10,000
- Canoeing Ireland €10,000
- Ice Hockey €10,000
- Boxing €10,000
- Gymnastics €10,000
- Modern Pentathlon €10,000
- Volleyball € 8,000
- Sailing €12,000
Peter Sherrard, CEO of the Olympic Federation of Ireland welcomed today’s allocation,
“Since June 2018, we have made 46 sperate grant awards to our member federations under the OFI discretionary funding programme, which is made possible thanks to commercial revenues from our sponsors. Their support and this funding is vital in helping athletes and performance directors realise a wide range of extremely worthy projects, delivering tangible performance and developmental benefits for the athletes.
“As we close out on this first run of the programme in 2020, our objective is to enhance and expand it the for the next four-year period leading up to Beijing 2022 and Paris 2024. This objective is made all the more important due to the difficulties being faced our sports during the Covid 19 pandemic.”