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Ireland's Winter Olympic Dreams, Nurtured Without Snow by Nancy Chillingworth
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Nancy Chillingworth reveals the extraordinary journey of Team Ireland to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina. As Chef de Mission, she's orchestrating a team of up to eight athletes competing across seven winter disciplines - despite Ireland having neither mountains nor snow to train on.
The podcast takes us behind the scenes of Olympic preparation, exploring how Irish winter athletes train globally from Korea to Canada while still maintaining a unified team culture. Nancy shares fascinating insights into the logistical challenges of an Olympics spread across northern Italy's Alpine region, and how Team Ireland is tackling them through innovative international collaboration with Denmark and Iceland.
We discover athletes like cross-country skier Thomas Maloney Westgard, who achieved an impressive 14th place in Beijing despite battling COVID, and learn how short track skaters and alpine specialists represent Ireland on the world stage. Nancy's passion for building team identity shines through as she explains her philosophy: "Success breeds success if you feel invested in it."
The conversation explores how permanent ice facilities in Ireland could transform winter sports participation, with young athletes already showing impressive potential through youth competitions. Nancy shares personal insights about her journey in Olympic sport, revealing what drives her commitment to Irish athletes competing in unlikely disciplines.
Whether you're a winter sports enthusiast or simply curious about Olympic preparation, this conversation offers a fascinating glimpse into how a nation without traditional winter sports infrastructure can still compete at the highest level through determination, creativity, and international cooperation. Don't miss Nancy's delight in small team advantages: "When you have a small team, you can get really specific in what's needed."
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Hello and welcome to the Sport for Business podcast. I'm your host, rob Hartnett, and on today's episode we are looking to an area of sport in Ireland that does not get enough attention for a few obvious reasons One, the lack of snow. Two, the lack of mountains of any appreciable size or magnitude. Yeah, we're talking about Ireland's Winter Olympics team heading to Milan Cortino in February of next year, and today's guest is the chef de mission for Team Ireland heading out there, nancy Chillingworth, thank you. So in today's chat we're going to learn about the way it is that team ireland is preparing to go to the winter olympics in 2026. As we said, we don't have mountains, we don't have mountains, we don't have snow, but we do have a team, and that could be as many as eight athletes going out representing us across a multitude of different sports.
Speaker 1:We talk with Nancy Chillingworth, who is the chef de mission, about areas of culture, areas of team bonding, the lessons that she learned from fulfilling similar roles in Olympic Games gone by, and plenty more besides as well.
Speaker 1:And we're staying to the end as well, because her answers to the question of who she would invite to a fancy lunch are well worth the wait. Our coverage of the Olympic Games from winter to summer is in partnership with Allianz, the principal commercial partner of both the Olympic Federation of Ireland and of Paralympics Ireland. We do a lot of work with the team in Allianz and their place within Irish sport and Irish sport sponsorship is absolutely assured. So thanks to them for their ongoing support of what we're doing in Sport for Business. So we're out here in the headquarters of the Olympic Federation of Ireland, but we're not here to talk about the Olympics in the way that most of us consider it. We're here to talk Winter Olympics and delighted to be joined by the chef de mission for Team Ireland at Milan Cortina in 2026. Nancy Chillingworth, you're welcome to the Sport for Business podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. It's great to be here.
Speaker 1:Tell me a little bit about what a chef de mission for a Winter Games from a country with no real snow and kind of baby mountains is really all about.
Speaker 2:It's always the difficult question what does a chef do? And I suppose it's really a bit of everything From our perspective for the Winter Games. Our athletes are spread across the world, as you say. We have no snow, no ice, and so a lot of the work is really around bringing people together remotely in preparation and then support at the Games. So I suppose, no different to the summer. It's an Olympic project and you're sort of managing the project, just with fewer number of athletes fewer, fewer number of athletes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Milan and Cortina, it's a. It's a very wide area across the whole of northern Italy. So, from a performance point of view, the performer just sees the mountain or sees the track in front of them. But from your point of view, in terms of managing the logistics, how challenging is that?
Speaker 2:um, I think logistically it's going to be hugely challenging and when you look at it on a map it's nice and flat, and then when you go over and wreck it, you're trying to drive across the alps and the dolomites in the snow, um.
Speaker 2:But I think that what we're looking at doing is really the games have been designed so that each cluster is independent of each other, so there isn't really cross cluster transport provided by the organizing committee. So if you do it, it's up to you, and so we're really trying to have each sport operate independently, and we will provide support externally where we can. One of our main challenges is the accreditation numbers for support staff. So if you have a higher number of athletes in one village, then obviously there are economies of scale in terms of HQ team physio support and what you can provide externally to support them when you have one athlete in a village and you get one accreditation for support. So we're looking to to to maximize performance support by having an emphasis on their coaching and their direct support, and then we're really sort of having a broader hq team where, um, it's essentially martin burke will be leading the team to the west of italy and I'll be leading the team to the east of italy, um.
Speaker 2:And and then I suppose we have one of the things that I'm really excited about is a partnership or collaboration that we have set up with Denmark and Iceland, so they'll also have quite small teams. Denmark will be a bit bigger because they've qualified a hockey team and a curling team, so they'll be a bit bigger in Milan and a bit bigger in Cortina, but in the other villages they'll be small like us, and Iceland will be even a bit smaller again. So we're looking at sharing physio support between the three nations and led from a Team Ireland perspective by our head of performance support for the games, which is Ciara McCallion from the Sportland Institute, and then we're also using it as a bit of a bargaining tool with the organising committee in terms of trying to petition for more shared space in the villages, because space is at a real premium.
Speaker 2:So we're trying to work as a tripartite unit and it's not easy to throw up just a temporary building structure when you're up in the mountains.
Speaker 1:I guess that's just part of the deal of going there to throw up just a temporary building structure when you're up in the mountains. I guess that's the yeah, that that's it. That's just part of the deal of uh of going there. Um, our team is fairly widespread around the world as well. How many athletes are we tracking towards as of now, in kind of you know, going into the summer of 25?
Speaker 2:We're tracking somewhere between five and eight across probably seven disciplines. So that gives you an idea of the spread there are six villages. We hope to be and expect to be in five of them. So we're at the point now where we although slots haven't come out yet, but we know that we will, based based on points, we will have qualified one slot certainly in cross-country, one slot in men's alpine and one in women's alpine.
Speaker 2:Okay, tracking athletes across things like freestyle skiing models and snowboard, short track skating and luge and skeleton okay so a really broad, a really broad mix, but it makes it for a very interesting team yeah, and there's a bit of experience in there as well.
Speaker 1:So Elsa Desmond has been to Beijing before. Remember interviewing her on a screen in a box in the middle of COVID, um, but a great character. And then Thomas Maloney Westgard, he's he's been there as well Seamus O'Connor, if he makes it in the half pipe. So you know, for a nation that doesn't have a winter olympic tradition, we've actually got a bit of a Winter Olympic tradition there.
Speaker 2:We do, just people just don't really know about it. Yeah, so Thomas, this will be Thomas's third Games and he's he's constantly improving. So he was. He was phenomenal in Beijing. He came 14th. When you take out some of those Nordic nations who have a number of skiers, in cross-country terms he was the fifth nation. So it was really impressive. He had also been suffering from COVID so just before the Games and was actually quarantined in the village right up until competition. We were leaving his dinners outside his bedroom door, okay, and he has since then joined a professional team. So he's doing really, really well. If Seamus makes it, it would be amazing. He's currently working for the IOC, so he's busy in his career as well. But his first Games he was 16.
Speaker 1:I think he was the youngest right last few games and, yeah, this would be his his fourth games, if he does you don't really imagine half pipe snowboarders that are anything older than 16 or 17 years old no, you don't, you don't and where is he based down in? In Switzerland um, yeah, he's currently living in lausanne okay, so he's working with ioc and, uh, and that's a handy one. How far spread are we with the other athletes across the world?
Speaker 2:um, um, very far. So we have um. So liam and liam o'brien and sean mackinac are here these couple of days and they're both short track skaters. So Sean is based in Hungary and Liam was based in Korea because there's a really strong tradition there of skating and his coach was there and he has just moved to Beijing again, for just outside Beijing for coaching and I was just trying to this morning he's the only, he's the only international athletes and in that training group now, so he's he's quite excited about the, the coaching opportunity there. And then, other than that, we have some people in Europe and some in the States, and then Claire Dooley at Mogles. She spends some time. Her hometown is in Australia, but she trains a lot in.
Speaker 1:Canada, ok, the sort of the question that arises sometimes. You mentioned it yourself about getting awareness of these athletes and getting awareness of the fact that we are heading to the winter olympic games. Paris moved the olympics as a movement so much closer to our national sporting conscience and the athletes were a part of that. The olympic federation of ireland were a part of that as well. Are we. Are we moving into the 26 winter games from a higher base from which we can actually advance further?
Speaker 2:um, I think, so, um, I think there's, as you say, there's, there's just more public awareness and interest in olympic sports.
Speaker 2:You can, you can feel it yeah um, I also think that if you, we, we don't necessarily, maybe we don't necessarily talk about so much in performance terms in ireland just because we're, we are a summer nation, um, but people love the winter olympics, people love watching the winter olympics, yeah, um, and we had a bit of a dip, I think for, in beijing because of covid, because there weren't camera crews out there, and but even still, despite that, you had, um, like a little girl in donna base, lily cook, who saw elsa compete and decided I want to do that and within 18 months, had qualified for youth olymp games.
Speaker 2:You know, so, like it doesn't, we're not talking. You can do. You can do huge strides with relatively little when you're, when you're small as it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I do think that having a games now that is in Europe, so the time that made the time zone, makes a difference and it's more easily accessible.
Speaker 1:I think that would make a huge difference. Yeah, there was also I don't know, sorry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're coming off the back of that cycle of you know, tokyo, beijing and was it before beijing was it in korea, so we haven't had winter games in prime time yeah in europe for an awful long time, so you kind of have to be invested in it to be curious enough at nine o'clock in the morning to tune into the live and the big finals. And I can remember from Beijing and Pyeongchang as well, watching it with Claire Balding on the BBC. The BBC always pulls out all of the stops and they give great coverage of it.
Speaker 2:So the transition from tokyo to paris is going to be the same now as from beijing to milan, and that is really exciting it's really exciting and I think that we I don't have I don't have the figures here so I won't try and give them, but the and we did. We received information and from the organizing committee or from ticketing, just they sent anything around in the first wave of global public sales that the tickets that were had been sold by nation and there was a significant number sold in our in Ireland and and that was just that. That was just general public global sales. So that's really exciting too, that there are definitely people and they're not just families of athletes planning to travel over.
Speaker 1:It is so true, I was lucky enough to be in Paris, but then lucky enough to be in Turin for the Special Olympics Winter Games as well. And if you're listening to this now and you still have that FOMO from not having gone to Paris, milan is a lot easier to get to than Los Angeles or Brisbane, where you know the next Summer Games are going to be. So, yeah, beg, borrow, steal, try to get there, it will be brilliant.
Speaker 2:The Winter olympics are they're? They're special. You know there's a and, like beijing was my first winter olympics. I'd done youth games before that and but there's just, there's some. There's just something about the winter games and I remember speaking to kiera mccallion, physio, about it and like up in the, if you're in the the call room up at the top of the half pipe, and like competitors are high-fiving each other and cheering each other on, because I don't know if it's.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it's something to do with the danger or the fact that a really cool trick is really great for the sport, um, but there's. There's a different type of competitiveness yeah, I don't that? I haven't really seen in summer in summer games okay um and it's yeah, it's really something like something, it's something to behold, and you're also I think that you you feel as a spectator, you can also feel a bit closer to the action, because there's a lot of you know, standing on the slope, yeah yeah, and it is like it's, it's.
Speaker 1:It's obvious. We know when you go to a sporting event you get a totally different sense of it and totally different feel of it as well. But you know, going to an olympic games really is it. It is incredibly special. You've been to a few, so you've been as deputy chef de mission out in Paris. You were chef de mission previously for the Winter Games in Beijing as well. What lessons did you take from those experiences that will form part of what Team Ireland is all about now, in February of next year.
Speaker 2:I think we're. I suppose we're always learning and evolving as we go, and I think it's always very important not to try and do things the same, so every Games is really different from the previous one.
Speaker 2:There are different environmental factors, different organising committee, different venues, different athletes, different support team. So it's really, I suppose, learning what worked well and why it worked well. Well, um, and the why is far more important than the what, because that's that's where you learn how, how you can reframe it for for the next one, rather than just thinking that you can. You can do the same um. One of the one of the things that I've loved over these games of being a part of Team Ireland is how we as a team are able to create and foster that sense of Team Ireland.
Speaker 2:I'm a really strong believer in success, breathing success if you feel invested in it. But it just doesn't if you don't feel invested in it. So the team needs to understand what it feels like to be part of the team, and I think that's something that we're constantly getting better at here in the OFI. You can sense a Team Ireland culture when you're in and amongst groups of athletes who have been to a Games together or support staff and coaches who've been to a games together. There's um.
Speaker 1:So it's not, it's already tangible, but you can sense it yeah, and it's also not something that you can just sort of retrofit. I mean, culture is exactly the right word. As you've said, that's what you build in order to create it and definitely there is that sense it comes down to you know, the gear that you're, that you're wearing, that sort of, you know, having that really strong, solid brand. The visual storytelling, the athlete storytelling, so many of those things that are out there as well. And, as you say, the winter olympics can be a little bit special. You know the two events that have just absolutely grabbed my attention in the last number of games short track speed skating. I kind of think like how could anybody not fall in love with that? It's completely mental. And then there's the, the skiing, the races.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like rally car skiing as well ski cross my favorite yeah, brilliant where they're just sort of literally thrown out of the gates on the mountain and then there are no rules. You just get to the finish line ahead of your competitors. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been a while.
Speaker 1:Really exciting. The lack of escape facility here in Ireland has been there forever. We used to have one, but probably in the days before sport became the behemoth that it is now at the moment. But as Irish people we do love attaching ourselves to sports that we might not have heard of on a Monday and which we're absolute experts on on Friday the women's hockey team making it to the Olympic final. We knew all of the rules, we knew all of the gear, we knew all of the individuals concerned, the fact of putting an arena and we've been covering the story of the prime arena holdings going in down in Cherrywood, in Dun Laoghaire. Cherrywood in Dun Laoghaire. You know we're a way away from it, but if that dream materialises into reality, how much of an impact do you think could that have on future Olympians?
Speaker 2:I think having a facility would be huge. It's been. It's one of the main pillars in our winter sports strategy is getting permanent ice into the country. I think that if you look at it, even just in terms of the number of people using the pop-up rinks that are there every year even speaking to Karna Sullivanllivan from the ice skating association like they have to be really early in booking time to run sessions on those pop-up rinks because the demand is just so huge.
Speaker 2:And but one of the difficulties then is that when we get to performance level, everybody has to leave um. So having somewhere where, firstly, there can be training that's accessible, um will well I mean it's very clear it'll make a difference but also where people can actually see their idols. Yeah, so that where you can actually have the international athletes here training or here competing, or, if there's a hockey match, that the children who are currently playing ice hockey in Kerry and travelling up north a couple of times a week, as far as I'm aware, to train, that they can actually come and see what's possible. I think that obviously the facility itself is a bit away and then performance takes time to develop.
Speaker 2:So the actual, the fruits of it won't be seen for some time, but I think that it's, it's absolutely essential yeah, but the dream is possible.
Speaker 1:So we had one special olympic athlete skier, kaylin moore, who went out to turin in the in terms of the grading, became the first sort of senior graded skier from Ireland to compete at the Games and then went and won a gold medal. Like we couldn't have imagined that a year ago, we couldn't have imagined it on the plane travelling out there, but it was brilliant to actually see it. So there is the potential.
Speaker 2:There's definitely the potential If you look at even athletes within the current snow sport system. So Cormac Comerford is here today. Cormac learned to ski on the dry slope in. Kiltearnan, ava McKenna, who is a girl from Wicklow who she competed in EYOF in Italy. In what year is it right now? In 21? No, what year is it now 23. She competed in 23 and then competed in YOG last year in 24.
Speaker 2:And she's definitely like she's on the long list for milano cortina, and she's, you know who knows um, yeah, you could have somebody who's competed in an eyo, f, a yog and an olympic games, all in the one cycle from um, yeah, now they do have napkins in wikileaks they do. There's not a huge amount of snow in them I suppose she first put on a pair of skis on her driveway, a pair of little baby skis. Her father got a job in Switzerland.
Speaker 1:Okay, that kind of does help. All right, so we're. Where are we now? We're eight months out from the Games. What's that period of time going to look like from your perspective now? Are you going to be traveling backwards and forwards because it's easier to do it to italy than it would have been to beijing. So do you? Do you utilize that proximity, or is this something where you've got to spend as much time with your head in a computer trying to make sure that all of the logistics work on paper or on screen?
Speaker 2:I think we probably won't go out again. I think there's both from budgetary and sustainability perspective. There isn't really a need to travel out again. We did a lot of recceing alongside the the chef to mission seminar, um in march, so we recceed our pre-game space in bolzano as well, so we did it all in the one. We're really happy with that setup and happy that we can do all of the planning um online with them from here, and so really, I suppose for us it's now working with the sports on what are the really detailed plans for each sport and actually for each athlete, because when you have a small team, you can get really, really specific in what's needed and really targeted.
Speaker 2:There's definitely a challenge within some sports because qualification runs very, very late. So right up until the middle of january it's born entry deadline on the 26th. So we need to plan. We plan for everybody qualifying. That's. That's what you do, um. So we're currently working with the sports around um. Linda o'reilly obviously leads on logistics, so she's working with them. Um, what? What does their plan look like for every athlete? Pre-games? We're not going to run a pre-games camp as a group. This time we did for Beijing, but a lot of that was also because we wanted to bubble everybody in Europe, so it would just be one single flight this time. There are very few places where everybody can prepare and train in the venues that they want to and stay together, so we made the decision not to do that but to actually just gather everybody in both saddle for two nights. It's really handy for each village.
Speaker 2:Do kit distribution, team day and kill announcement from there and then actually look to support each individual plan in the lead into that as to where makes most performance sense for them. So a lot of our work over the coming months is really drilling down into the detail with each national federation and all of the coaches around, what those plans will look like.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm sure they will be great. That's culture in a distributed fashion, but that's the way that the IOC have determined it and that's the way that it works. But listen, the very best of luck with it. Before I let you go, I always just like to ask a few more personal questions when it comes to getting to know a little bit more about Nancy, as opposed to the chef de mission, um, can you tell me what was your first or an early childhood memory of sport? What was the trigger that put you on the road that you're in now?
Speaker 2:um, so I think we were always mad about sports. So I'm the eldest of four. We're always mad about sports, um, but I grew up in a house without a television okay um and we borrowed a television for the 1990 world cup cool and, and so that was, we were absolutely obsessed, but we had borrowed this little television from from friends.
Speaker 2:Um, and then after that, when we got one, we only for a long time we only used television to watch sports, right, and I think that's what I thought television was it was just for watching sports that's a pretty cool way of going about things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that we could go back to that again. Um, very good, italia 90. Uh, so you've you. You landed on one that had great success for Ireland, which is it, which is a good thing. Um, outside of the Olympics, what sporting event would you most like to attend?
Speaker 2:Oh interesting, that's quite a tricky one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they always are. But yeah, maybe we'll talk. Would it be a World Cup, seeing as how? That was where your entry point was?
Speaker 2:I don't know. I don't know, like, in terms of spectator sports, rugby would be my passion. Luckily I was at the last World Cup, but actually I think maybe, having just come back from recce to LA, I think actually going to a basketball a basketball, okay over there would be pretty spectacular okay, basketball the conference finals are on at the moment.
Speaker 1:I was up too late last night watching the start of the new york knicks and the indiana pacers. It kind of sucks you in, but that's the way. There is a vibrant atmosphere at those games. All right, cool, okay. A few little easier ones then Tea or coffee.
Speaker 2:Always coffee. Good answer Netflix or the movies, probably Netflix.
Speaker 1:Okay, anything in particular that caught your attention in recent weeks or months.
Speaker 2:Well, actually I sound like I'm a massive basketball fan now, but on the plane coming back from LA, I watched all of Court of Gold, which was a Netflix documentary following basketball into Paris, which was amazing. It was really good. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:Very good, excellent. I was over in Paris and we were watching some of that and when the French team were going well, the whole of France became basketball nutcases and it was great. Are you a reader?
Speaker 2:I am a reader, but probably not as much at the moment.
Speaker 1:Okay, what's on your bedside locker at the moment? What are you reading?
Speaker 2:At the moment and, quite unusually for me, racket is sitting there at the moment. Okay, unusually for me, I am, racket is sitting there at the moment okay, conan island yeah, I borrowed it from gavin um, but I I would normally read fiction for escapism okay, more more my. Thing I.
Speaker 1:I like having two or three books on the go at any one time a little bit of fiction, a little bit of history and, uh and a little bit of non-fiction. Um, I read the conan islands book. All right. Yeah, I wouldn't recommend it to anybody looking at going into a career in professional tennis, but no but you have to know all of these things it is a good insight. All right, um, here's. You thought the last one was tricky. Here's a tricky one. What would make you happiest in 2025?
Speaker 2:That's easy for me. It's just finishing out the year with my children happy. That's all you ever want as a mother.
Speaker 1:Brilliant, Happy, healthy and as a dad as well. Yeah, that's the thing. I've got a leaving cert this year and Joseph is very chill going into it, and that's the key.
Speaker 2:I had a leaving cert last year, junior cert this year.
Speaker 1:Cool. Make sure that they get through that happy and you're in a good spot. What's the last thing that made you laugh out loud?
Speaker 2:We had a very funny moment which I won't divulge what it was but in our staff meeting yesterday where we all got a fit of the complete giggles and I think that kind of sums it up that how important being able to we were all in so being able to laugh like that proper hysterical laughter in a staff meeting is pretty important.
Speaker 1:Infectious is probably the wrong word for somebody who has been a chef to mission in Covid times, but laughter is infectious. I wonder was Catherine Tiernan involved in it in some way, shape or form? We'll say nothing what stays in the boardroom. What happens in the boardroom stays in the boardroom. Um last two ones. What's what's on your music playlist at the moment?
Speaker 2:oh, like, like a real mix. So because my children infiltrate it all the time so um, so I think there's probably like a mix of like foals, lumineers noah khan probably been thrown in there, okay, um, and then also a bit of like oriam and neil young, and then I have a 12 year old, so we're off to lana del rey, and then she'll also make sure there's taylor swift in there too okay, very good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm heading to uh aslan and um malahide, which, minus christy dingham, I'm not sure how it's going to work out but we'll, uh, but, but we'll enjoy that nice, nice venue, all right, yeah, it'll be a good vibe yeah, as the kids would say, that's the motto for um milano cortina it's your vibe, that's there, so good for the games yeah, nice, I.
Speaker 1:I do remember, like when the, when the ofi, when the team was going out there, that there was a kind of a sense of partly the cultural thing, but that the, the motto of the of the team going out was just to be sound. I just fell in love with that so I kind of thought, if we could all go through life just being sound, that that's a really, really good way. So, yeah, ok, last one, they can't be related to you, but I've got a table reservation. Very fancy restaurant in Dublin or a city of your choice, don't need to name that. Who would be the three people that you would enjoy the company of over fine food and even finer conversation? Dead or alive sport, non sport, your choice that's very difficult and it's well.
Speaker 2:I'm really privileged that we get to spend a lot of time with sporting icons, so I'm going to leave sport out of it, okay. Emily Bronte, because I've just always loved, but I'm also fascinated by her life and how she came to write the way she did at a time when everything was again exactly keeping it literary.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go with joseph o'connor, but mainly because, um, he wrote a poem for team ireland, for the paralympic team, for london, and that went into the team book and I spent quite a bit of time having phone calls with him, chatting to him about the team while he was writing and developing that poem, and he is a fascinating, fascinating man, okay, so I think that that would be good conversation great, gonna have to go and find the poem now as well and then yeah, um, and then um, I know they can't be related, but it's a little bit more distant.
Speaker 2:So my great-grandmother, who I met a couple of times but was from what is now the Czech Republic, and she and her sisters all married Austrian Jews and everybody well, not everybody, but my grandmother, my grandmother. I guess they managed to get their children out, but, yeah, I would love to kind of understand what that was like.
Speaker 1:Wow, we'll allow that. Thank you Absolutely, in fact, couldn't be better. I'd love to be part of the waiting staff that was bringing the food to your table.
Speaker 2:You can come and eat with us cool, that'd be great.
Speaker 1:I've only got four seats, it's okay, I'll stand. Look, the very best of luck. It's a huge year. It is a year in which we can look to make Winter Olympics an Irish team story, and no better woman for being able to lead that out and in support of the athletes. Nancy Chillingworth, thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thanks to Nancy for taking the time out from a really busy schedule to sit with us and have a chat today. Best of luck as well to all of Team Ireland's Olympians heading out to Milan Cortina for the Winter Olympic Games of 2026. They will be coming at you in February of next year. Thanks also to Allianz, the supporters of all of our coverage of Olympics and Paralympic Games and Team Ireland's efforts in both of those areas.
Speaker 1:On Sport for Business and Team Ireland's efforts in both of those areas. On Sport for Business, we have a couple of really interesting series coming up one on Pride for the month of June and another on Gaelic Games and the GAA Championship season, which is obviously in full swing at the moment. We've also got an interview with Enda Lynch, who is the CEO of the recently awarded Best National Governing Body in Ireland, at the Federation of Irish Sport Industry Awards. That's Badminton Ireland, so stay tuned for those. If you're interested in what happens in the commercial world of Irish sport, you can find out so much more at sportforbusinesscom. Sign up for our twice daily news bulletins or subscribe to this podcast, wherever you get your podcasts from. Thank you for taking the time to this podcast, wherever you get your podcasts from. Thank you for taking the time to listen and see you next week.
