Ben Lowry: A fine Northern Ireland Olympic celebration yet to some people like our first minister it didn't exist
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Hide AdWe report on page 19 how much some of the thousands of people who attended enjoyed the evening.
Five medal winners were on stage beside NI Olympians and Paralympians who qualified for Paris.
When the winners returned to their home areas across the province, it was clear that there was a huge public appetite to congratulate them.
The winners were:
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Hide Ad• Rhys McClenaghan of Newtownards (aged 25, gold, gymnast, Team Ireland);
• Daniel Wiffen of Magheralin (23, gold, bronze swimmer, TI);
• Hannah Scott of Coleraine (25, gold, rower, Team GB);
• Jack McMillan of Belfast (24, gold, swimmer, TGB);
• Philip Doyle of Banbridge (31, bronze, rower, TI)
• Rebecca Shorten of Belfast (30, silver, rower, TGB).
All but Daniel were present on Thursday. As the host, the BBC’s Stephen Watson put it, he was on a well deserved holiday in Bali and appeared by video instead.
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Hide AdRegular readers of this newspaper might remember that the former Ireland rugby international, lawyer and reconciliation activist Trevor Ringland was to the fore in calling for a celebration of the stunning achievements of these Northern Ireland athletes. He became increasingly concerned that there was no sign of it happening in the weeks after the games ended, and wondered whether the private sector should organise a bus through Belfast ('We need an event to celebrate Northern Ireland's Olympians within days, not weeks - or we should arrange it ourselves': Trevor Ringland, August 16)
We at the News Letter were similarly concerned, and began to explore how we could help and partly fund such a venture (‘Northern Ireland's Olympic heroes deserve an open tour bus tour through Belfast city centre,’ Ben Lowry, August 17).
Once a fortnight had passed since the end of the games we phoned round the medal winners on the week commencing Monday August 26 but they were beginning to go away on holiday, in some cases lengthy ones. One winner told me of their surprise that no Northern Ireland event had happened so far.
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Hide AdIt was a joy therefore to see Thursday’s celebration finally taking place, albeit the delay missed the chance to get them all together. There is, as far as I am aware, only one photograph of the six winners together, taken by the BBC in France, to which smaller media outfits who lack a budget to staff overseas events have no copyright.
Trevor and I still feel that the success was worthy of a bus through Belfast city centre, but he called this week’s event “a lovely tribute to the young athletes who represented us all so well in Paris”. As it was. That is why at the News Letter we put the celebration on our front page and devoted five pages to it.
BBC reports had promoted the evening in advance, and on BBC Newsline on Thursday just before it, Stephen Watson interviewed Rhys and Hannah live.
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Hide AdBizarrely, though, there was no footage of, or even mention of, the actual event on the 10.30pm TV news. Nor was it anywhere on the homepage of the BBC NI website on Thursday evening or at any point on Friday. In fact, my colleagues and I struggled to find a web report at all. Perhaps the BBC plan a special screening of the ceremony, but a report should have been high on the web home page for at least 24 hours.
When Armagh GAA enjoyed their great success against Galway in the All-Ireland in July, it was for a while the first and second story on the website with two lower stories too. There was at least one story on that huge victory for more than 48 hours. At no stage during the games did I see the stunning NI Olympic tally top the site: I did though see it at number two.
It might be that some people in the BBC are unaware of the scale of the Olympic victory, but four of our athletes were judged best in the world. There has never been an Olympic gold like it since Mary Peters in 1972 and Jimmy Kirkwood and Stephen Martin in 1988. Crowds thronged the heart of NI’s capital city for Peters when the Belfast Telegraph arranged a bus, despite that summer having been at the height of the terror threat.
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Hide AdThe BBC’s inadequate coverage of this week’s celebration needs to be challenged because the national broadcaster has a reach that the private media cannot match. Most people in NI will not have seen the joyous scenes in SSE Arena.
It was also unfortunate because it might have seemed to reflect BBC reticence around those politicians, including the party of our first minister Michelle O’Neill (who did not attend) who do not want NI to exist as a country and so do not want to acknowledge the idea of ‘Northern Ireland’ sporting success.
That misjudgement aside, our athletes – the winners and qualifiers – have been a huge credit to our small country, and an inspiration to the young people of the province.
Ben Lowry (@BenLowry2) is News Letter editor