The number of high-performance athletes seeking psychological support up 20pc, says Sport Institute chief Liam Harbison

Liam Harbison, director of the Sport Ireland Institute. Photo: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

Cathal Dennehy

March 16 2021 02:30 AM

For Ireland’s high-performance athletes, training routines may have continued relatively unhindered in recent months, but that’s not to say they’ve escaped the psychological toll of lockdowns.

At the Sport Ireland Institute, the demand for psychological supports has increased by 20pc this year, according to Institute director Liam Harbison, who said such a surge was not witnessed during the first lockdown last year.

“We have noticed over the past two or three months an increase for psych services, both in the performance psych side and the clinical side,” he said. “We are looking to create more resources in those areas. There is certainly an impact of prolonged lockdown on the (high-performance) community and those services are available to athletes and staff. I’d imagine it’s an increase in the region of 20pc.”

In research conducted late last year by Dr Kate Kirby, head of psychology at the Sport Ireland Institute, along with Dr Tadhg McIntrye, just 40pc of athletes in GAA, rugby and Olympic sports said they were “thriving” during the pandemic, with 31pc “coping” and 28pc “languishing”.

“There (are) some concerns out there, anxieties amongst athletes around Covid, concerns around travelling and coming home to families,” said Harbison.

With a little over four months until the Olympics get under way, Harbison is “very confident” the Games will go ahead. Almost 83pc of elite Irish athletes said they will take the Covid-19 vaccine, with a little over 4pc saying they won’t and just under 13pc saying they don’t know.

The question was posed in December in a survey run by Sport Ireland in association with the Olympic Federation of Ireland and the findings were released yesterday in the annual review of the Sport Ireland Institute.

“We need to test that again (as) that was before the third wave,” said Harbison.

“Certainly, the athletes are willing to take the vaccine when it becomes available.”

Last week IOC president Thomas Bach said the Chinese Olympic Committee had pledged doses for participants but Harbison said this will likely have no effect on Irish athletes, given that vaccine is not yet authorised for use here. He also noted there is a strong feeling among Irish athletes that they did not want to jump the queue ahead of vulnerable citizens, and while the IOC has stated vaccination will not be required to compete, Harbison is hopeful the vast majority of the Irish delegation will be vaccinated by late July.

“I know a lot of the back-up team, physios etc have been vaccinated already and a number of the team based in the north are vaccinated,” he said.

“We are hopeful the natural roll-out will mean the team will be immunised prior to travel.”

There was a total of 31 Covid-19 cases among the high-performance community over the past year, most of which occurred during the third wave, and under Sport Ireland’s testing programme more than 700 Covid-19 tests have been carried out since October.

Despite the lack of access to facilities for many athletes during the first lockdown – the Sport Ireland Campus was closed for 75 days last year – athlete sentiment towards the quality, access and availability of performance support services grew in 2020.

“We are confident that Ireland’s performance potential at the Games this summer remains undiminished due to the ongoing pandemic,” said John Treacy, CEO of Sport Ireland.