The Athlete Voice

We share the energy from the Sport for Business Women in Sport conference and turn the mic to two athletes who show why listening changes outcomes. 

Linda talks rugby, nursing, and a Master's that opens new doors; Laura charts a late start in racing and a clear route to Le Mans with honest talk on funding and grit.

• Athlete voice as the driver of real change
• Linda’s rugby journey, nursing background, and sports management masters
• Stepping away from a central contract to grow leadership and longevity
• Laura’s Radical racing path and Le Mans ambition
• Sponsorship realities and the bring-your-partners model
• Balancing full-time STEM work with training and sim racing
• Mental skills, safety, and performance under pressure
• Trinity Access, role models, and opening doors for young people
• Calls for support that meet actual athlete needs

If there’s anybody out there who wants to get somebody to inspire your workforce or your teams by telling their story, then Linda Djougang will do it brilliantly. And if you feel as though you’re ready to dive in and give a helping hand, you never know that Laura O’Connell with that sense of enthusiasm and drive that you want to support, and you can reach out to her through Sport for Business as well

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Subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts from, and look forward to more upcoming chats on leadership and the business of sport.

Our upcoming live events on Women in Sport and the Sporting Year Ahead, as well as plenty more, are live on the Sport for Business website, and we'd love to have you join us.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Scene: Women In Sport
• 2:03 Why The Athlete’s Voice Matters
• 3:06 Linda’s Path: Rugby, Nursing, Masters
• 6:40 Balancing Contracts, Purpose, And Performance
• 9:11 Laura’s Leap Into Motor Racing
• 12:00 Targets, Le Mans Dreams, And Funding
• 15:00 Team Sport Perks Vs Solo Costs
• 18:05 Sponsorship Reality And Gender Gaps
• 21:00 Trinity Access, Role Models, And Big Dreams
• 24:30 Training While Working: STEM And Sims
• 27:30 Esports Links And Closing Thanks
• 29:20 Where To Find More Coverage

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Screen here and putting our little nation on the map. It's just you know this is a stuff of of dreams on the church.

SPEAKER_02: 0:14

It's good, it's good.

SPEAKER_01: 0:41

It is Wednesday, December the 10th, and today we're looking back on yesterday's Sport for Business Women in Sport Conference. It took place with the support of Lidl Ireland, who are great supporters of not only ladies' football, but the whole concept of women's advances in both equality and dignity, representation and visibility within the sporting landscape. It was a pleasure to host over a hundred advocates of the um of the the concept that sport should be for everybody and it should be equally accessible and equally available to everybody. We had some great conversations with Joanna Brady, the chair of Drohida United and Shinn Fein's spokesperson on sport, with Michelle Tanner, who is head of sport in Trinity College, and chairs the Women in Sport Committee at Sport Island, with three of the representatives who are newly named on our list of 50 women of influence in sport, and a great session with Nadia Shah Rastani and David Davis from Chelsea Football Club women's team and catapult, respectively. You can catch up with lots of more of the coverage on our website at sportforbusiness.com. But for today's daily podcast, we're dialing in on the athlete's voice. We had Linda Dugang and Lauren O'Connell from Rugby and Motor Racing up to tell us their stories. And there was a lot to be gained. The Sportfor Business Daily is an audio blast of the content which we produce every day on sportforbusiness.com. If you want to find out more, please do visit us at the website or sign up, subscribe, comment, and share wherever you get your podcasts from. The athlete's voice. We can never do an event when we don't speak to people that are actually out there that are competing in sport, sometimes at the highest level, sometimes at the grassroots level. But again, coming back on that sort of that stakeholder engagement piece that we're talking about, one of the things that always comes out is don't start saying what I need. Don't start telling me what I want and what I'm missing. Just please listen to what I can tell you and then craft whatever it is that we can actually make it. So nothing without nothing about us without us. And for uh a slightly different take now, we've had a bit of football and we're going to have a little bit more football, but now we want to dive into the world of uh well, let's let's not preempt it, but from a little bit of rugby, a little bit of motor racing, please put your hands together to welcome Laura O'Connell and Linda Dujang up onto the stage with me. Now, as we just get mic'd up over there, so uh so Laura is making her way in the world of motor racing, which is not something that we tend to see outside of Lando Norris and Abu Dhabi and Max Verstappen and things like that. But motor racing, as such, it's got a much broader base to it than just at that level of Formula One. And Laura is making her way in that. And Linda, who I had the pleasure of speaking with at a at a marketing event a couple of months back, uh, and Linda, who I first got to know when she was coming through into the Irish rugby setup, and she was working as a student nurse, unpaid during COVID, and then having to go to the training sessions that she was doing it. Now she's got a master's in sports management and she's been to a rugby world cup. And you know something? She hasn't changed a bit, which is one of the reasons why we love her. So please put your hands together one more time as Ushin works wonders around Laura's hair. So we'll call up onto the stage. First of all, Linda Du Jang. It's inevitable that the person whose sporting life always revolves around speed does takes a little bit longer to actually get the microphone on. Um you're both very welcome. Thanks a million for taking the time to uh to come and and join us today. So the athlete's voice. Um let me start with you, Linda. Um, this is becoming a regular now that we're actually having these chats. So your rugby career, I'm pretty sure that everybody in the room is familiar with it, that you have that you're playing with Leinster, you're playing with Ireland, you've been to the Rugby World Cup, uh, over 50 caps, ever present in the team, absolute kind of central linchpin of it. But you've stepped away now from the central contract because you've got a master's in sports management. So I want to flip this slightly on its head, and I want to talk to you about what it is from the athlete's perspective that you see as being your next series of steps.

SPEAKER_03: 5:43

Oh, um, I think there's so much to that question. Um, I think that for me, my journey has never really been a linear journey, but it was a journey with a full purpose. Um, so starting like from the beginning, moving here in Ireland at the age of nine, um, I think I I just wanted to, like every parent, you want to get an education. Um, and rugby was never really my I never really knew rugby. I had to Google it. Everyone knows I had to Google the sport. Um, so in me excelling in rugby, it was so important for me that I'm able to still have my education. Um, and I think for doing both allowed me to find the balance and allow me to even have a deeper purpose, um, especially with nursing. Um, because rugby can be you I felt like even with the workup and my decision to not take the contract, it's like we live in like it's a little bubble, and sometimes you lose aspect of other things. Um so it's really important for me to kind of go back, like go back to nursing, um, finish my masters. Um but it gave me that other that there's so much more to just me being the athlete, that there's so much, I have so much other value to me. Um so for me, it was able to step out of it and go back to nursing. And I think it's also a part of just being like nursing, just kind of way of giving back, but also humbling you. And because there's so much more out there. Um, and I wanted to also know that I'm capable of doing both, being the athlete and also being able to achieve other things um as my masters, and also step out of that. Um, like with the master, I I love the onside of the pitch, but I also wanted that experience of also offside of the speech. Like I have that experience as an athlete, but I I don't have anything to show for it. And I think that the master was really important for me. That like as athlete, we all have an aspiring day, that I'm able to have that experience on the field, but also outside the field.

SPEAKER_01: 8:11

Very much so. And you were you were one of the the personalities that was there for the launch of the layer arena as well, the new RDS development as well. So so you're nailing that side of it. You're you're we're we're not going to be missing you from the from the Guinness Six Nations now, are we? You're still going to be there and about for that injury permission and everything else.

SPEAKER_03: 8:30

Yes, um, that's definitely one of my goals that I'm able to still be able to perform at the highest level. Um, but I'm also able now that I'm mature and I'm experienced and that combat also um just that experience, um, that ambitious. You bring that ambitious, and that can be very powerful. Um, that you're able to have both that my maturity and also my experience as a player, I want to evolve into other roles.

SPEAKER_01: 9:03

Okay, let me come back to that as well and some of the roles you're in you're involved in in Trinity as well. Um, Laura, uh you're very welcome. We we we perhaps, and that's on us, we're not as familiar with your sporting story as we are with Linda's, but as we can see from the image that we have up there, uh you're a you're a demon for the El Speed. Um tell us a little bit about what it is that makes Laura O'Connell motor racing driver tick.

SPEAKER_04: 9:31

Uh well I suppose I just I love the sport. I grew up watching it, but not I'm a kind of late starter to the sport, you could say. Um most people will start in go-karts at the age of seven or eight and work their way up. Um but I actually started in cars. I saw a competition on TikTok, um, believe it or not. Um it's probably five years ago now that I saw that. And thousands of women applied from all over the world for this competition. And um the winner received a full season in the British DT Cup, which is a massive um championship in the UK. It's worth millions of euros, so it was a big, big prize. And I was like, ah sure, I'll give it a go, see, see what happens. Um and I didn't win, just in case anyone's like, whoa, that's really cool. Uh no, I didn't win, but there was thousands of people there, and like I made it to the top 30, which was a pretty big achievement for my first time out on track, and from then I was just hooked from the driving perspective. I'd been hooked my whole life on watching it, and um, I suppose I grew up watching Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna, Marx Verstappen. They're all, you know, heroes of mine, but they're all male female heroes. So I I didn't know really that it was something I could do myself. I grew up in rural County Clare. It was her and his life, and that was kind of it. You know, I didn't know that I could go for this myself. So when this competition came along and I actually got to sit in the in a racing car for the first time and I got out on track, I was that was it. I had the bug and I've been racing ever since and try trying to do whatever I can. And I suppose my career kind of just it spiraled like it just everything that's been happening so fast, and I'm at a point now where I'm heading towards the highest level of the sport, and it's just it's crazy.

SPEAKER_01: 11:18

All from that one platform, yeah. Exactly. So always say yes, even if you don't think that you've got a a chance of making it. That's that's brilliant. So where where are you at now? So where is that sort of that top level within your category of of most sport? Because we're more familiar, I suppose, with the rallying side of it in Ireland that there's a there's a strong history and a tradition of that. We do some work with Mondello Park as well, so there is that, you know, sort of element of it. So like there's a there is a and you know, Eddie Irvine and uh and Eddie Jordan and all of the rest of the.

SPEAKER_04: 11:47

I'm actually named after Eddie Jordan, so yeah. Oh, cool. So uh a big hero of mine as well. Um yeah, so right now I'm racing Radicals, which to people that don't know, maybe you've probably heard of F1. The car looks a little bit like an F1 car, just a bit wider, and it's got two seats in it rather than the one seat. Um and that's quite a high competitive level, but my ultimate goal is to race the 24-hour Le Mans, which is probably the most prestigious race there is in racing. And I'm very lucky to be getting a lot of offers from teams um all around the world to to race um in that 24-hour series, which would get me to Le Mon, which is crazy to think about. But I'm at a point now where up to this point my parents and myself were funding it, and I'm at a point now where we can't afford to do that anymore. So I suppose it's now I'm looking for partners um and brands that will be able to bring me to that point.

SPEAKER_01: 12:43

Okay. And like, I mean, this is this is a journey which has accelerated, pardoned the pun very quickly through like from from five years ago on TikTok through through to this point now. Um like uh do you do you ever sit down with your parents and just tot up the sums as to what it's cost to get you this far so far?

SPEAKER_04: 13:01

Yeah, it's a lot.

SPEAKER_01: 13:03

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 13:04

You probably could have bought a house, like it's a lot.

SPEAKER_01: 13:07

Okay, yeah, yeah. There's uh there's loads of houses. Well, not enough, but there's loads of houses out there. Um but but the but the dreams are uh the dreams are much much more valuable, um, says he owning a house. But anyway, there you go. Um so like the that sort of sense of having to worry about the logistics, like Linda. I I loved your journey into rugby, the fact that you googled it because you turned up for a football match, didn't you? And then it was the fact that rugby was much more fun because you could bash people out of the way as opposed to as opposed to football. But you you're in a a kind of a semi-professional and then a professional environment. You don't have to worry about the kind of things that Laura is worrying about, as in like, oh God, I'd love to travel to that particular race, but oh, the flights have gone up to you know 300 now as opposed to 30 when they were when we looked at it two weeks ago.

SPEAKER_03: 13:58

Yeah, I think I think that's really um the privilege that we have as athletes um and in rugby that you like your you're I always say like like your product and your performer and is the least thing that you worry about is flights. And I think that's the the perk of rugby and team sports. I don't know, like um that you get to travel different competitions and see the world where um without really the opportunity of rugby, um, I wouldn't have had those opportunities to see the world. Um, yeah, definitely wouldn't afford it. Couldn't afford to see. Um so it also comes with you have to put yourself um in that environment. You have to be able to put your body through so much that you like, yes, we're going to travel, but you're going to compete, you're going to work. Um so in all of that, you get to enjoy it because of your friends and you have shared this experience. And some experiences are good, some bad, but I always tell myself, and I can only talk for my point where I know that if I want to get selected, this is what I need to do to be able to get on that flight, to be able to see other places, I need to work for it. And so it's not you need to get selected. And so you have to put yourself in that environment in that you put your hand up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 15:32

Yeah. But you've also you've done your masters now in sports management. You've probably got more words of advice for for Laura than than than I could than I could give. But like that's so that sense of of being out there as a as a solo sports star and as a female solo sports star, you know, there's a there are a number of chicanes to actually sort of traverse on this. See the way I've done my research on all of this uh motor racing lingo. Um but like if you if you thought about that at the beginning, you probably would have thought, oh God, no, it's just gonna be too expensive, it's gonna be too too much work. What do you where's the gap now? So you say that you need sponsorship in order to actually get to the next stage, and then you also say that you've got teams that are actually sort of, you know, calling to you. Does the team require you to bring sponsorship with it as well? So it's not just about your talent behind the wheel.

SPEAKER_04: 16:28

Yeah, exactly. And I think that's something that people don't realize, even in the likes of F1 and stuff, those drivers come with so many, they are getting paid a lot of money to do what they're doing, but they're also bringing the teams, all the sponsors and all the brands that they need to keep the team going. So even at that highest level, you are relying on other people for your success, which is um it's scary and it's hard.

SPEAKER_01: 16:50

But do you can you wear can you wear the female badge as a point of difference? Because, you know, we live at times in a vanilla world where actually it's the it's it's the pop of colour, it's the pop of something different that can actually be more appealing to to sponsors. We've got plenty in the in the room today, and nobody wants to do the same thing as everybody else.

SPEAKER_04: 17:13

Yeah, I mean, yes, of course, because like there's not many of us doing it, so um it's definitely, I suppose, a pull, but we're competing against the boys all the time. There's no separate competition, we're all um racing against each other all the time. So um I suppose in that sense you are still fighting against the men to get your place in that championship as well. But I there's definitely kind of um, I suppose a pull in terms I am a woman doing a male-dominated sport, so um, you know, I want to be a spokesperson for the younger generation, which you know there's a lot coming through, which is great to see. But um yeah, it does seem that the men are still getting the the opportunities a little bit easier than the women.

SPEAKER_01: 17:57

Yeah. Uh the the idea of competing in on the same track in the same car against each other is something so Rachel Blackmore won the the big Gold Star Award at the uh at the Horse Racing Ireland Awards last night, and she did that. She became a household name by by beating the boys at the at their own game as well. So like there is a there's kind of a playbook there in in some ways that that you can follow. What's the experience been like though, of of reaching out? Like, has it been, oh, they're sponsoring in most sport, therefore I'll drop them an email and then what?

SPEAKER_04: 18:33

Not much.

SPEAKER_02: 18:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 18:34

A lot of silence. Um no, like it's hard because um I'm still very new to this, I'm still very green to the whole thing. So um my resume, I suppose, isn't very long, even though I've done well in what I'm what I've done so far. It's still not a very long list of what I've done. And I'm getting all these offers from teams to move higher. But you know, businesses they want to see experience, they want to see um you doing well um before you know they hand you out their money. So it's yeah, it's been hard, but um, yeah, I'm hoping like you know, being able to speak at things like this will help get my name out there, get that exposure. I'm doing um the European Motor Show um at the RDS in January as well. So, you know, getting to speak at things like this are a huge help as well in getting um businesses on board.

SPEAKER_01: 19:27

And and most sponsorship comes from within the family as such. So it's probably somebody that is committed to motorsport as well that will actually come and uh and and be your uh you know your your your your saving grace. Your uh I was gonna say a knight in shining armor, but it doesn't need to be a knight, does it? Um Linda, you've I mentioned about the fact that you're you're an ambassador with Trinity now and you're working with Trinity Sport. We spoke with Michelle earlier on about the the broad nature of providing sport to the student population as well. You're probably being more exposed. In this role now to multiple different sports. And I know that there is a motor racing group within the college environment as well. How have you found that when you're seeing people that are engaged in sport where it doesn't have necessarily the same support structures as you'd have in Leinster or with Irish Rugby?

SPEAKER_03: 20:20

I think I definitely enjoyed working in Trinity. I think Trinity is really where my journey kind of started for me, my rugby journey. So they really had led the foundation for me. And so going back after the workup and doing a few things bits with them for me was is what I always wanted. But also the fact that I did the Trinity Access Program. So going to desk school, disadvantaged school, which I come from a desk school, where we don't really have sports facilities. And so for me, going back to school, different schools around Dublin and in person and just talking to primary and secondary school and just talking to the students about my journey and how to really allow them to dream big. Because most of the kids I was talking to, I was like, what do you want to be in the future? And it was like, I want to be a barber, I want to be a hairdresser. And I was like, but you can also do be a rugby player, you can also be a footballer. So it's allowed them to and also bring them into a space that they can see themselves in the future. They can see potential in themselves. So for me, that also, because even when I'm home, I'm just Linda. No one knows my family. Don't really watch rugby, they barely come to the games.

SPEAKER_01: 21:45

Um at least they know your name anyway.

SPEAKER_03: 21:49

So I always think that I live like a two-world because people are like, oh, um, can I check your photo and everything? I'm like, sure. Um, and then in the rugby environment, I'm Linda, like the rugby back home and just yeah, wash the dishes. Okay, like um, so is but I want but that's where I come from. That is me. Um, so me coming into that environment with these kids in school and seeing because I know that they are, I see myself in them and know the journey. And I would just wish that when I was there, I had someone coming in and be like, let's go. Like I if you're from O'Connor um primary school, I brought them to the Trinity High Performance Gym. And just even them being in that environment, they're like, wow. I'm like, yeah, use that, do that. And it's that's we can't sometimes we don't see the impact that had, but like for them to just even if it's one student, be like, I want to be this. So it's allowing from different, I don't care, boy or girls. Like it's I don't like I want any really, any student, any child to grow up dreaming big, dreaming. I want you to dream a dream that really scares you. That yeah, they see a footballer, they see me, they want to be me. But it's to open that opportunity for them that if we have opportunity, we might not have the resources, and the more the dream big, they will find the resources. Like I got the opportunity to go to the access program. I never thought that I ever go to Trinity, but the Access program allowed me to go to Trinity. I never thought I wanted to be a nurse, but it opened that part for me. And now, and even Trinity, I never thought that I played rugby, but it I play for Trinity, it set me a foundation, it made me dream bigger, a dream that I never dreamt of, though I thought that would never achieve. Or even my my parents didn't ever think that I go to college. So sometimes even your parents' dream can not always be your dream. Yeah. Because they have different dreams for me. But someone like I was Serena Williams, but I was I want to be a tennis player, and I my dad wants me to tennis in Scary, so he was like, get back in the car. But now I was like, okay, I won't be Serena Williams. Um, so I had to find someone. I was like, so if I can't be Serena Williams, what can I be? Um, so it's looking and always, yeah, I didn't have a role model, but I was able to dream big that I knew I want to be doing sport, but I don't know which sport. So so many times I got told that I was too physical, I was too strong, or I was too this. But I felt like rugby accepted me for me. And I think that that's how I excelled because I felt seen.

SPEAKER_01: 24:45

And if you were six years old now, you could dream of being Linda Jugan, which is a lovely position to have actually sort of got yourself into.

SPEAKER_03: 24:52

Yeah, but everyone, I think that everything happened for a reason. Everything that happened kind of leads you, if you put the work and everything like that, it leads you to where you're meant to go, to you're who you're meant to even become. So getting those rejections, getting this, get getting all this negative, like you're not this and that. If I have listened to them, if I had believed in them, I wouldn't never achieve what I wanted to achieve. Even though someone, some people didn't see my dream, but I saw it in me. Yeah. So it was for me, yes, this all this thing happened for a reason, and they just shaped me to be the athlete that I am today.

SPEAKER_01: 25:31

And it's great, the access program in Trinity. We I was in with the minister wearing my Special Olympics hat, Karen Coventry, uh, came in with me as well, and we brought in one of the Special Olympians, the athlete's Ashwin, who is in a first year in Trinity at the moment now, and we just shut up because the athlete's story from the athlete's voice was just so powerful. And to be fair to our Minister uh McConnell was uh was very um open and and very willing to listen. Um, that effort, that hard work, that energy that you need to put into it, you're holding down a job within um within Pharma as well, isn't there?

SPEAKER_04: 26:05

Yeah, so I also chose a male-dominated industry as well. Um I'm in STEM, so I'm a biochemist. Um yeah, I work for an American medical diagnostic company, and yeah, that's a Monday to Friday full-time job on top of training and which is always gonna be tough.

SPEAKER_01: 26:20

Where do you find the time for training? Because like if you're if you're an athlete, you can literally bring your gear into work and you can run home, or you can run at lunchtime, or you can swim, you can do all of the rest of it. I'm guessing that with your car that looks like a Formula One car, I know I know the roads around Drew Moland and Ennis and things like that, but they're probably not gonna be driving to work in the car.

SPEAKER_04: 26:41

No. Um so my car is based in England all the time. I'm over to England probably about once a month, um, getting on track. And other than that, I go to the gym for about six in the morning before work, um, go to work, and then during my actual racing season, I'll go home and do an hour on the racing sim that I ham have at home, um, which will basically teach me the track, um, what it'll be like in all different weather conditions, and it's the best kind of thing you can have without getting out on track yourself. Um and I also work with a sports psychologist then as well to be mentally prepared for every race because I suppose not only for your performance, for your safety, you kind of need to be um in a good mindset for racing. So um yeah, something like that is very important as well. So I'll always uh um speak to my sports psychologist before every race um a couple of times as well.

SPEAKER_01: 27:37

Can you can you uh can you do sim racing to actually sort of keep you in the in the zone as well?

SPEAKER_04: 27:42

I can. I actually I I've never um dived into it, but it is an option I have. I'm very lucky to have a racing sim at home. A lot of other drivers don't have that luxury, but um unfortunately when you're so far away from all the tracks, it's kind of a necessity. So um yeah, I could do that, and it's a massive world as well. Sim racing, like in its own right, is um a huge world, and there's a lot of drivers coming out of that now that are going on track and doing incredibly well because they know the track so well.

SPEAKER_01: 28:12

We've we've got um Sinead Hosey and and Trev Keane from um Phoenix Group are here as well, one of the biggest kind of players in in global esports. So have a word with uh with them as well, get you get you onto that. Um well look, thanks million for taking the time to be with us today. Um the very best of luck in the journey. If there's anybody out there that wants to get somebody to inspire your workforce or your teams with telling their story, then Linda Jugang uh is uh is is available and ready to do that uh and and do it brilliantly. Um you wouldn't think it from looking at the violence that she inflicts on other teams on the on the pitch. But look at that smile. I mean, she's just uh an absolute winner. Um and if you feel as though you're ready to actually sort of dive in and give a helping hand, you just never know that Laura O'Connell with that sense of enthusiasm and drive, pardon the pun one more time, um that you want to support and and you can reach out um to her through me as well. Um but it would be brilliant if we um if we have both of you back again in years to come and uh and carry on this journey. So uh thanks very much for being here with us. Thank you. Thank you so much. You can catch up with more of the content, the ideas, and the inspiration from the Sport for Business Women and Sports Conference in partnership with Lidl, and which took place at Talla Stadium on Tuesday, December the 9th. You can find it all on the Sport for Business website, sportforbusiness.com, and we look forward to chatting to you and to providing content for you again tomorrow and in the coming days and weeks.

SPEAKER_00: 29:49

Being here and putting our little nation on the map, it's just you know, this is the stuff of of dreams.

SPEAKER_02: 30:02

It's good, it's good, showing the stuff we're done.