1500m
swim ~ 40km bike ~ 10km run
SATURDAY
14th AUGUST
REGISTRATION IS NOW FULL
!
Caroline
Kearney
Caroline was regarded by most in the sport
as a certainty for the Olympic Games in Beijing 2008 and indeed London 2012. This
would have made her the first triathlete to represent Ireland in the sport at
the Olympic Games. With that ambition and her focus firmly fixed on the prize,
Caroline had a system in place from 2005 to help her achieve this goal and had
only recently arrived in San Raphael near Nice to take up training with
Montpellier Triathlon Team with whom she competed. It was near this village, on
the coast road where a car collided with a group of cyclists. Caroline bore the
full impact and died shortly afterwards in hospital. In this horrific
split-second, the sport lost its best female athlete, a role model, inspiration
and close friend to many, and Irish sport lost an outstanding female athlete.
As Ian O’Riordan wrote in the Irish Times shortly afterwards, “The Irish
Olympic Team for Beijing will now surely be one athlete short.” In an
unprecedented move, the Olympic Council of Ireland headquarters flew flags at
half-mast, an honour usually reserved for former Olympians. On that occasion,
it was the passing of a future one. When the idea of a memorial race was
presented to Midland Triathlon, the club enthusiastically grabbed the
opportunity to honour this singular athlete.
Click here for some photos
of Caroline in Autun 2006
As with many
triathletes, Caroline’s sporting career began in the pool alongside her sister
Edith in Coolmine. However, it was always to triathlon that she was drawn and
began racing at an early age. Families often show great sporting lineage.
Caroline’s sister, Edith, was a national swimming champion and also competed at
representative level for her country in triathlon for many years until serious
injury led to her sporting retirement, but not from triathlon totally, where
she remained as Head of Selectors for several years. Ann Kearney, Caroline and
Edith’s mother, was a pioneer of the sport of triathlon and became one of
Ireland’s most successful elite triathletes competing nationally and
internationally with a host of awards and triumphs. Anne remains the only Irish
athlete to achieve a podium finish in an elite triathlon race. A formidable
athlete, she competed in several Ironman events, holding an Irish record time
for the distance until 2008.
With this
sporting pedigree behind her and the formidable raw talent and ability,
Caroline shone through early on. A powerful cyclist in triathlon and for Swords
CC, many will remember her gliding past them at an astonishing pace. At the age
of 18 and while still a junior, she won her first National Triathlon
Championship, a feat she repeated in 2001, 2002 and 2003. It was in 2002 that
she began competing internationally at U23 progressing to elite level. This
success was rewarded when French club, Cesson Sevigne, asked Caroline to join
them and compete in the French League in 2004. In 2005, she joined Montpellier
Triathlon Team for the summer and with Beijing beckoning, she based herself
with a world-renowned coach for winter training on the Gold Coast in Australia.
Re-joining her Montpellier team for the 2006 season, her last race was the
European Championships in Autun France where she posted one of the fastest swim
times and finished 29th in a world class field.
Her sudden death
at the age of only 24 has been a massive tragedy for everyone in triathlon in
Ireland, her friends and her family. Caroline’s talent and determination was
clear to everyone who met her. The love of her sport, voracious appetite for
training and her positive attitude were awe inspiring to all. As a result, she
earned the love and respect of people all over the world, as is paid testament
to in countless postings on the Internet at the time of her passing.
Also see
Just no escaping
the ‘what ifs’ in Caroline’s tale (by Aidan O’Hara)
Caroline Kearney –
A Tribute (by Anna Frankland)
Pushing for the
top (by Anonymous, posted in the Irish Examiner)