Rowan Gill
Last Monday was a typically busy one at the Mayfield Sports Complex. It was raining so I slowed my car as I passed the parked cars outside the main door in the hope that someone might be moving out. Not a chance. I turned into the avenue that leads down to the school and parked in the old tennis courts.

As I walked the 100 metres back towards the door I could hear the activity from the hall. There were shouts, yells and the sound of runners screeching off the wooden floor. “Mayfield is as busy as ever,” I thought to myself.

There was a group standing in the hallway just inside the main door of the complex. They were the members of the Cork Special Olympics Swimming Club who were gathering for their weekly session. The club have the pool from 8 to 9pm each Monday evening.

I had gone to Mayfield to meet Rowan Gill. Rowan is a member of the Cork Special Olympics Club. He has been chosen to represent Ireland in the Special Olympics World SummerGames in Athens next summer. He will be the only swimmer from Cork (and Munster) in the 11 member swimming team that Ireland is sending to Greece.

As I looked around to find Rowan’s coach Christine O’Halloran, a young man walked up to me, smiled and said “hello”. It was Rowan. I recognised him from his picture on the www.specialolympics.ie website. Each Monday, Rowan’s father Joe, or his mother Julie, drive him across from Douglas for his swimming practice.

Christine arrived. She had arranged the use of a room where Rowan and I sat and chatted for a while.

Rowan is currently the star of the Cork Special Olympics Swimming Club but he takes it all in his stride. He is 15 years of age and is a first year student at the Douglas Community School. He is the second of four children of Joe and Julie Gill. “I have two brothers and one sister,” he said. “Seán, Michael and Clodagh. And we have a dog called “Poppy”.

Swimming is not his only passion, he leads a very busy life. “On Monday’s I swim” he told me and “and Tuesday, I have dancing”. Rowan is back in the pool in Brookfield on Wednesdays and he has drama on Thursdays.  “I do nothing on Friday and I have music on Saturday” he added.

As well as preparing for the World Games in Athens, Rowan is also busy preparing to take part in a play with the Wolfe Stage School at the Everyman Theatre at Easter. “We’re doing the Golden Ticket” which is an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

He will have rehearsals for that everyday from now until Easter, “except next Saturday,” said Christine, “when we go to Dublin for the monthly training session with the Special Olympic team.” Christine is the swimming coach to the Special Olympic squad as well as being Rowan’s coach.

“Will the training in Dublin be hard?” I asked Rowan. “Naw” he replied with a roguish grin and a glance across at Christine. We all laughed. “So what do you like about the training” I enquired. “Everything” he replied. “It’s good fun”.

“Is the coach good?” I asked. This time he kept a straight face looked at me and said “naw”.  I looked at Christine as if to say what’s going on here? “Is she cross?” I asked. “She’s cruel” he said and then burst out laughing.

Rowan’s favourite swimming stroke is the front crawl. He will be taking part in the 25-metre front crawl competition in Athens. He is really looking forward to the competition. He meets the rest of the squad at the monthly training sessions and “they are all very nice” he says.

The Irish Special Olympics team flies out of Dublin on June 17th next. “We (Ireland) will be hosted by the Island of Rhodes in Greece for four days before we go on to Athens for the opening on June 25th.” said Christine O’Halloran.

Rowan will not be short of support in Athens. Apart from the Special Olympic support team and athletes, the entire Gill family, Joe Julie, his brothers and sister along with his two grannies and his godfather will be there to cheer him on.

Time was moving on and Rowan left us to get ready for his swimming session. I went into the public to watch the session. The Athens Games will be the end of the current four year Olympic cycle which seen Rowan develop from a social swimmer to be a 25 metre champion. You can see him in action at the 4 x25m National Relay Final on Youtube by typing in “Rowan Gill 25m relay”.

It is only when you stand in the public gallery and look at the work the swimmers, their coaches and parents were putting into the session you really appreciate value of clubs like the Cork Special Olympic Swimming Club. Just like all the volunteer organisations that work in special needs, the club is under resourced. Pool time is scarce and expensive. They have two sessions each week, one in Mayfield and one in Brookfield, but they could take in more swimmers if they had the resources to hire more pool time.

When you look back on the Special Olympics World games when they were held in Croke Park, especially in the light of how our material fortunes have changed in recent times, they were arguably Ireland’s greatest contribution to the first decade of the current century. It will be no different for Greece this summer. There will be 7,500 Special Olympians from 185 countries taking part. Once again the athletes’ oath will be, “Let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.” There is a lesson there for all of us.

I left Rowan and the warmth of swimming pool area and stepped back out into the dark rainy evening. It was a far cry from the weather Rowan can expect in Athens. I have no doubt that he will give a great account of himself when he gets there. Whatever happens in the competition this young man will do Cork, Munster and Ireland proud. You only have to spend a short while in his company to know that he is already a champion.

 

 

 

 

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