Rowing in behind Paralympian Sarah

IRISH Olympians may have crossed the finish line but hopes of further medals for team Ireland are not over yet as the Irish Paralympic team take centre stage later this month and among those competing is Clonlara rower Sarah Caffrey.

 

Paralympic adaptive rowing was first introduced into the Paralympics in Beijing in 2008 but this is the first time Ireland has fielded a team in the sport. Following good performances at the world championships in Lake Bled, Slovenia, the team took fifth place, securing them a place in the Paralympics.

Paralympic rowing has three categories of classification, which indicates the amount of functional ability a rower has and the category the Clare Paralympian is competing in is the LTA category, which stands for legs, trunk and arms.

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 the sight of a fully sighted person 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 and aged 14 she found the perfect one for her, rowing.

“I always loved rowing. I was 14 when I took it up and 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, you’re off to regattas in the summer and you’re out in nature. I loved it. I started out there and rowed throughout school and with the University of Limerick on their team. Then I went travelling and took about 10 years out from rowing,” Sarah said.

However, she moved to London six years ago, where she took up a teaching post. Settling in Barnes on the river Thames, it was difficult for rowing not to call to her once more and she decided to join the nearby Barnes Bridge Ladies’ Rowing Club.

“It was close by and when you see the boats on the river, you think you’d love to get back to it, my sister joined as well.

“About four years ago, just after the Beijing Olympics, I heard they were starting the adaptive/Paralympic rowing in Castleconnell. I think I had done everything in rowing; I’d done women’s Henley, I’d done the major regattas in England and Ireland and to represent Ireland, it’s something I wouldn’t have an opportunity to do but for my visual impairment. Also, because it was to be based out of Castleconnell, right by our house, which is on the Clonlara side of the river, it’s one of the nicest stretches of water in the country so I decided to get involved with the team,” Sarah outlined.

Despite having rowed with the team since 2009, Sarah still had to try out for her seat and the adaptive rowing trials were held in Easter 2011 in Inniscarra, County Cork. Sarah was delighted to secure the number two seat.

Following their fifth place finishes at the world championships in Slovenia, the team came third in a more recent competition in April in Italy. However, in June they were unhappy with a seventh place finish at a competition in Munich but Sarah said illnesses and injuries might have been to blame here.

“You can still take positives out of it though because it forces you to do more. It was a wake-up call,” she said.

The team are competing in one event but this will involve three 1,000m races over three days, the first will be the heats on Friday, August 31, the second on September 1, which is known as the repechage, and then the A and B finals take place on September 2.

“We really want to make the A final, it will be tough, there are two teams in contention for the gold, Germany and Britain, and then there are six or seven teams whose times are within two seconds of each other so there will be two or three knocked to the B final. We would be in those six or seven so it will be a tight race. If we make the A final, it will be a tough race for the bronze and since the world championships, all the countries are making improvements. We’re closest in time to France and probably America, even though we’ve beaten America in every race. You’re looking at 100ths of seconds, France we have beaten every second time depending on the race, China and Canada are close to us as well. It’s going to be a fight, the bronze will go to whoever wants it the most,” Sarah said.

Sarah believes that once this Paralympics is over, there will be a lot more understanding of what the Paralympics is about and it should help create more of an awareness about disability.

“I think the fact that it will be held in Britain will do wonders for awareness of disability, people will have a better understanding of what a Paralympian is and it will be seen in a positive light. As a Paralympian, you are the exact same as everybody else, except you might have one inability to do something. After the Paralympics, I think people will realise that even though you have a disability, you can still do anything you want to do.

“Now that I am in my 30s, my visual impairment is not a challenge but I do find it difficult, especially with travelling, airports and getting trains because I don’t look disabled people are not helpful because they don’t see it.

“It is just a lack of understanding and it is disappointing that there is still a lack of understanding out there. I think having the Paralympics will help create awareness that you don’t have to have a white cane or a wheelchair to have a disability, there are hidden disabilities, but these disabilities don’t prevent you from doing things,” she said.

Sarah explained for instance, on the Team Ireland squad one of the Irish Paralympian athletes running in the 100 and 200m races has an A standard, which means he almost qualifies for the Olympics but has a visual impairment.

“He runs only half a second off Usain Bolt’s time. A lot of our athletics guys will compete against able-bodied athletes and we would also compete against able-bodied. You still have to train as hard the able-bodied athletes.

“We’ve very high hopes for Team Ireland and at the moment we have five or seven world champions in different sports including cycling and athletics so we will be hoping for several gold medals. It would be unbelievable to come home with a medal,” Sarah said.

The Irish Paralympic rowing team is made up of Kevin Dutoit in the front seat, known as the stroke seat. Kevin is missing three fingers and is originally from South Africa but lives in London, his grandfather is Irish. Shane Ryan, who also has a visual impairment, is in the three seat, he is from Kilmallock, County Limerick and rows out of Castleconnell Rowing Club. Sarah is in the two seat and behind her is Annmarie McDaid, who is originally from Donegal but who lives in Dublin. Annmarie has multiple sclerosis. The coxswain is Helen Arbuthnot, who lives in London but her father is from Dublin.

John Armstrong, who used to row for Ireland, is the Paralympic rowing coach and Joe Cunningham from Nenagh is the team’s manager.

The team are now en route to Portugal, where they have asked the Canadian adaptive rowing team to join them for a final training camp before the main event. This will help both teams as they will be in a more pressurised environment and Sarah believes it will help the team to push themselves more.

“It’s been amazing. Our team was announced at the end of June and since then the good will of people and the interest of people has been phenomenal,” Sarah concluded.