The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
EXCITEMENT reached fever pitch in Clonlara and Killaloe in the weeks leading up to the 2012 Paralympics as locals studied the form of two talented young athletes.
Rower Sarah Caffrey from Clonlara and freestyle swimmer Jonathan McGrath from Killaloe were the only Clare representatives at the London Games. While success eluded them in their respective competitions, they will benefit a great deal from this experience, which should provide a great platform if they are in a position to compete in the next Paralympics.
Ireland’s adaptive coxed four finished fourth in their B final, 10th overall, at the Paralympic rowing regatta at Eton Dorney in September. Paralympic adaptive rowing was first introduced into the Paralympics in Beijing in 2008 but it was the first time Ireland fielded a team in the sport.
The crew of Anne-Marie McDaid, Sarah Caffrey, Shane Ryan, Kevin du Toit and cox Helen Arbuthnot fought it out for third with Brazil, finishing just 0.14 of a second behind the South Americans.
Sarah was born with a visual impairment known as achromatopsia, which means she is extremely light sensitive and colour blind. The disability has left her with only a 10th of what is considered normal vision and due to the light sensitivity, she needs to wear tinted sunglasses and contacts all the time.
Sarah has learned to cope with the visual impairment and did not let it stop her from taking up sport. At 14, she found the perfect one for her – rowing.
“I always loved rowing. I was 14 when I took it up. Due to my visual impairment, I couldn’t do sports but my uncle, Philip Hackett from Woodcock Hill, used to row for St Michael’s in Limerick and for Ireland in the home internationals and he suggested that it would be a good sport to take up.
“My sister, cousin and I took it up and my uncle was our first coach in Shannon Rowing Club in Limerick. I thought it was a great sport. It’s very sociable. I built a great group of friends from it. I started out there and rowed throughout school and with the University of Limerick. Then I went travelling and took about 10 years out from rowing,” Sarah said in an interview with The Clare Champion last year.
She moved to London six years ago, where she took up a teaching post. Settling in Barnes on the River Thames, rowing called to her once more and she decided to join the nearby Barnes Bridge Ladies’ Rowing Club.
For fellow Olympian, Jonathan McGrath, a season’s best of 4:53.25 in the 400m freestyle S8 heats was not enough to book a spot in the final. The Killaloe swimmer had stepped up his gruelling training programme in the run-up to his first Paralympic competition.
Jonathan, who swims between 8,000m and 9,000m six days a week, headed off for a special training camp in Portugal on August 16, before he travelled to the Paralympic village in London eight days later.
Jonathan previously finished fifth in the World Swimming Paralympic Championships in Eindhoven. Four athletes achieved personal bests, with the Killaloe teenager finishing fifth in the final of the 400m freestyle (S8 class). He produced an outstanding performance to set a new personal best of 4.52:69.
He is part of Swim Ireland’s high-performance development squad, based in UL. Jonathan is internationally carded and is now considered an elite athlete in Paralympic terms. In fact, he was previously ranked fifth in Europe and eighth in the world.
