Sonia O’Sullivan: Athletes do not like compromise - just ask Roy Keane or Lindsey Vonn

It always feels strange to be watching something like the Winter Olympics from somewhere as far away as Melbourne. Especially when events in Milano Cortina in Italy are being played out on the snow and ice, while here in Australia the midsummer heatwave and lack of rain has everything looking barren and dry.

It still surprises me, too, how easy it is to fall for the Winter Olympics. Even if for most of us these sports only come around once every four years. Maybe it’s just the speed and the unpredictable nature of the snow, ice and slippery conditions or it’s the sheer thrill of some events when anything can go wrong.

This feeling of being a long way from home was heightened on Tuesday night when I took a break from the action and went to see the film Saipan. And with that, those still-divisive memories of Roy Keane’s departure from the Ireland football team in Saipan before the 2002 World Cup were brought back to life on the big screen.

Again, it all felt very out of place to be reliving one of the great Irish sporting dramas of all time play out in the Melbourne summertime, 24 years later.

Surprisingly, the local cinema was full. It was interesting that much of the audience would have been very young or not even born in 2002.

The film has been described by some of those involved as a cartoonish version of Saipan. Long before the days of social media, I got the sense no one wanted any of this played out in public and it should have been sorted behind closed doors. Especially in the week before the World Cup began.

But once these problem issues and disagreements are aired in public, it becomes harder to step back and start again without feeling that someone would be compromising their beliefs and values somewhere.

I know from experience that sometimes the stubborn nature of any athlete chasing success won’t allow for compromise. Especially at the peak of their preparations. Once you reach high standards and know what it takes, it eats away at you to accept below-par preparations.

You could sense the irritation building for Keane and I could resonate with some of the frustrations and could maybe see myself taking similar actions.

Saipan has divided Irish people for more than two decades now. There clearly were some problems. The lack of footballs, the poor state of the pitch, the hotel without proper air-conditioning. And, perhaps worst of all for Keane, the holidaymakers roaming the corridors alongside players preparing for the biggest competition of their life.

This is the one time you do need to be entirely focused and concentrated on the competition without any distraction. Instead there was this drip-feed of stories about conflict and discontent, most of which soon became a topic for discussion in every pub and corner shop in the country.

Again, from the athlete or player perspective, you never want to see any negative headlines before a major event. Ultimately, it’s only going to get in the way of the final performance and maybe that’s why Saipan still divides opinion as it does. How far might Ireland have gone with Keane on board is something we will never know.

Back on the Winter Olympics slopes at Milano Cortina, there seemed to be some divided opinion around Lindsey Vonn when the star US skier started the women’s downhill just nine days after rupturing her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), a knee injury.

Now 41, Vonn had won the gold medal in the downhill at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and had already endured lots of setbacks in the years since. She retired in 2019, only to return in 2024 with the aim of chasing one more Olympic medal. After qualifying last December, she became the oldest downhill skier to win a World Cup in St Moritz.

So she had every reason to believe she could compete for a medal. Even after that crash on the eve of the tournament she never gave up hope. It must have felt as though the whole world was watching once she got through the two training runs.

It’s all or nothing when it comes to the final of the downhill skiing events. There was no doubt Vonn was going all in, even with her knee somehow being held together beneath her ski pants.

Perhaps chasing that fairytale ending, Vonn hit one of the early gates and crashed out fewer than 15 seconds into her run. At a speed of 70mph (about 113km/h), it was not going to be a soft landing.

[ Lindsey Vonn required two operations after breaking leg ]

Airlifted from the course, Vonn’s crash made world headlines. But any athlete in her position would be hard to stop, the mind overriding any likely vulnerabilities, especially in a last Olympics.

Even at this far of a remove from Milano Cortina, there’s plenty of Australian interest in the Games. As a nation, they have accumulated 19 medals, winning six gold since 2004, adding another on Thursday when Cooper Woods won gold in the freestyle skiing moguls.

Like Ireland, Australia is not known for its winter sports. If there is any interest among young athletes, they must spend a big portion of their years overseas in Europe or the US to try to make the Olympic stage.

Some athletes will always find a way, no matter what environment they are born into. It helps if they’ve got some of that old stubbornness, too.

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