Women in Sport Week 2026 - Orla Comerford in Conversation

What happens when speed meets purpose and a whole community leans in? We sit down with Paralympic medalist and European champion Orla Comerford during Women in Sport Week to explore how top performance, smart risk, and real visibility can change the future of para athletics in Ireland and beyond. Orla opens up about arriving at 28 not as an athlete fading out, but as a sprinter just getting started—fresh goals, tougher standards, and the hunger to leave the sport stronger than she found it.

We dig into the indoor season and why the 60 metres is a ruthless but brilliant lab for testing skills. Orla explains how recent PBs reflect hard winter work and how a short, honest off-season—wandering India after Worlds, then returning to grind—resets both body and mind. This year becomes a launchpad: Europeans ahead, Worlds next year for qualification, and a summer built around Diamond League and Continental Tour opportunities. The mission is bigger than medals: show up at the highest-profile meets, create more slots for para athletes, and make sure future stars get invited rather than having to ask.

Integration is the engine. Orla shares practical examples of meets placing para long jump and shot put within existing schedules, proving how simple it can be to add events without spectacle or strain. When fans can see para sport alongside able-bodied fields, interest deepens, stories stick, and pathways multiply—locally at Morton Games and across global stages. Proximity matters too: when championships sit in our time zone or just across the Irish Sea, casual viewers become ticket buyers and lifelong supporters.

Orla’s personal perspective sharpens everything. Living with a progressive eye condition, she chooses presence over prediction: use what you have today, take the chance, and keep moving forward. That mindset powers her sprinting and her advocacy for women’s sport, coaching, media, and leadership—the “same energy” that grows participation and performance together. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves athletics, and leave a review telling us which event should integrate a para field next. Your voice can help open the next lane.

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Transcript

Opening And Women In Sport Week

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Just being here and putting our little nation on the map, it's just you know this is a stuff of of dreams of the champion, it's spinning, it's spinning, chilling the sixty country time, the church.

Orla’s Mindset And Career Arc

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Hello and welcome to the Sport for Business Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Hartnett, and today, Wednesday, March the 4th, we are right in the middle of Women in Sports Week, an initiative managed and run by Sport Ireland. And to talk through some of the issues around that as well as her own career, I'm delighted that we are speaking once again to one of my favourite athletes in the world of Paralympics, one of my favourite athletes, full stop. Delighted to welcome back onto the Sport for Business podcast, the Paralympic medalist and world European champion, Paula Cummerfoot. Delighted to welcome you back onto Sport for Business again, Orla Cummerfoot. Uh what a year you had last year. Um what a year you're going to have this year as well. Where's your head at at the moment in terms of where you are as an athlete that has scaled a lot of mountains and still has more to go?

SPEAKER_03 1:39

Yeah, to be honest, I kind of feel like I'm just getting started. And I know that like some people say that's crazy. I've been athletic seniors, I'm 28. I'm not the youngest athlete around. But I think for me, I just feel like I have reached the top of one hill and it's just only giving me access to the next hill. Like, do you know what I mean? I feel you you climb one mountain in order to be able to be stronger to climb the next one. And so I think for me it's about pushing those boundaries on, pushing the women's side of sport, pushing the power side of sport as far as I can take it and hopefully leave it further on than where I found it so that the next person can pick it up and take it further again. And I think um I've been I should be so blessed and privileged, like the last number of years have really gone well for me and have allowed me to build on it. And so I'm excited for this year. I think it's another opportunity to go faster to push those boundaries and hopefully uh run fast.

Indoor Season And Training Gains

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Yeah. Starting off, national indoor championships in the at the Sport Island campus, uh, new TV coverage, free-to-wear broadcast as well, which is going to be great. Um, what how are you in terms of your preparation at the moment? Because this is always very early in the season, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 2:44

Yeah, of course. Like indoors is early, and and when you're when you're running indoors, you have to appreciate that that's a it's a different time of year to outdoors. But for me, like I've always loved the 60, and I think it's it's a really fun event. There is absolutely no room for error in it at all, which uh definitely brings the stakes up. But it's a great uh it's a great opportunity to test what you've you've been doing in training. And I think indoors is is also a great opportunity to learn and and apply those lessons to the outdoors. But for me, like I've been running quite well indoors, I've run two personal vests this season, hoping to better that again on a Sunday. And it's it's an exciting time. I think I'm seeing the the fruits of my labour come out uh in some of those races and testing. And um I think I'm really privileged to work with a great group of teammates as well, like other athletes, and and they're always pushing me on because as they improve, I've got to improve with them, and we're we're always kind of competitive against one another in in a lovely way, and we want to see each other succeed. So that rising tide in Irish athletics, I think, has bringing us all up and to have you know great coach and support staff around me just only makes me more confident that that I have that belief in myself to go for it.

Rest, Reset, And Winter Work

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Yeah. Did you give yourself a break after when the season began to wound down last year? It felt, I think, in a good way, because athletics was just at such a good high profile that the season was long and long and then just went on a little bit longer as well. But did you did you feel both physically and mentally that you just take a little bit of time out?

SPEAKER_03 4:10

Yeah, I definitely think like that that year post-games is already, but it doesn't matter when the season starts and ends, it's just a long year, and it's a tough year. And when you look across the board at the number of athletes who get injured and find that year hard to manage, like it's big, it's a really, really tough year. So to do well in that year is isn't an easy feat. Um, but also for us, our world championships were at the end of September, start of October, which is like unseasonably late. Um, and so I suppose because our the Paralympics had also been in September, it just meant it made the cycle, the two cycles had been quite long. Um, so for me it was really important to kind of have that switch off. So, because our world championships were in India, I took some time to explore in India, which was really cool. Like having the opportunity to see so many amazing things and do a bit of exploring and then come home and just switch off, go back to the the mundane, day-to-day life, catching up with friends, going for long walks in the park and not thinking about what time you have to eat, what time you have to go to train. And you know, just even that for a week or two is is really nice, but it it puts you back into training when you want to go back in. There's no like, oh god, I'm coming back now. You're kind of your feet get itchy. You're like, I want to get back in, I want to train now again. And um, so starting back in November, I more or less do most of October of After Worlds, started back with the gang in in November. I'd done a little bit myself beforehand, just more on the mental side. You want to feel you've done something. Um, but it's humbling, you know, you got you get straight back into really tough work in winter, and there's there's no messing around, it's tough, and there's kind of no there's no forgiveness, you just have to get on with it. And I suppose for me that was a really nice place to be, to be able to have the ability to work hard and to push myself and and know that that's what it takes because that's that's what had you know led to the success last year, and was just building each year and being able to to work harder and push yourself that next next bit.

Mapping The Year And Big Meets

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Yeah. And what is the the what is the pathway for this year now? What are the what are the high points that you're looking forward to? Because it's it's not a Games year. You've got the world championships behind, you've got the Olympics behind. So we're back onto a European cycle now. What's the timetable that you work out in your own head for that?

SPEAKER_03 6:18

Yeah, I suppose exactly like that. You have your Europeans now, and then next year you're gonna have your world championships, which are your qualifying window opening for the game. So I suppose for me, this year is that like it's that last year before the Olympic or Paralympic cycle really kicks in. Um so for me, it's it's an it's a really exciting year because I think it's a year full of opportunity. It's you know, you're taking on different um different risks in training that you might not take all the year of the games. It's like, right, let's try something new and see if this works. Um, and I suppose for me in terms of like racing, it looks like trying to fill a summer with as many big races as I can, things that excite me that kind of um that push me to be my best, but that also push women's sport in para athletics forward as well. It's like, can we get to as many of Dive and League races as possible? Can we get to as many gold continental tours? Like, where can I be to create more visibility around this sport at home and abroad? And another exciting part of that is the Morton Games. We're gonna have an international field for the part of women that's we're gonna have some of the best in the world there, and and people can come down and watch it at home. Do you know? And I think that for me is really exciting to be a part of pushing that forward and doing big work to get that here and at home on Irish soil and knocking on all the doors to try and create those opportunities for myself because the hope is that the more work you do on that now and the further you push it all is that the next generation they don't have to make those calls. Someone calls them and says, We have big race and we want you in it. I suppose for me it's been about trying to create the opportunities because there aren't as many there for para athletes, and I want to to push that to a place where there are more, you know.

Blending Para And Able-Bodied Events

SPEAKER_01 7:52

And you've been to the fore in that globally, never mind in Ireland as well, you know, competing at the at the Diamond League, competing in in the you know, the the highest profile of events. Do you feel as though that has created a foundation now where that's only going to get better? That the the line between the sort of you know the able-bodied and the Paralympic uh events and sports is blurring in a really good way because it creates extra visibility.

Proximity, Fans, And Same Time Zones

SPEAKER_03 8:20

That's my hope, I suppose. Like, you know, we've been lucky in athletics that there's gender parity when you turn up, you watch the men's and the women's. And that's something that that's a fight on the hands for a lot of other sports. Like the women's rugby at home is is fighting for that same opportunity and the same energy as the men's. And so I think for me, I see in athletics that that same fight and that that kind of that energy and that same energy. You want that goal to paraathletics. So female athletes in in para sports have that that to kind of push after as well. And so for me, it's about the more visibility there is around it. It's it's our same principles, really. It's trying and put it in front of people because people people won't know that something's happening if they can't see it. If they can see it and they can get behind it, and then they they have new names and stories and people to follow. And I suppose when you see it, you understand how easy it is to integrate, or when you're a mate who has integrated a para race or para athletes into an event like an FBK games last year. We saw para athletes included in the long jump and the shot put because the long jump event is happening anyway, and the shot put event is happening anyway for the able-body athletes. So they included three or four para athletes as well. So then that also brought that showcase to people, as well as having your mixed para-classification race. So it wasn't just on the track, it was in the field as well. I thought that was it was a really good example of how easy it is to do it. And so for me, it's about seeing more of that and as many things as we can. It's not just one diamond league, it's two or three or four or five of them. It's not just one continental tour meet, it's you know, it's several of them, and it's across the levels, creating those opportunities for athletes, but also creating the opportunity for fans, for coaches, for you know, for people to get involved with sport at all levels. And I suppose like even when we think about the the women and sport campaign this week, same energy, it's bringing the same energy across the board. It's not just at the high performance end of things. It's you know, you want as many women in in coaching or in in media, in you know, all these spaces around sport. And I think that's a really exciting place to be as that's growing.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Yeah, and growing the visibility of power sport as well. So the world championships next time around are coming back to Swansea. So from a European perspective, it's literally a help skip and a jump. So that you could actually find that you've got a a new audience that have been brought into the sport that will actually think, actually, yeah, maybe I couldn't have made it to India or I couldn't have made it to Tokyo, but if it's in Wales, sure.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

Yeah, exactly. I think that's always the thing when you have a championship that's close to home. That's when people really get involved. Like I think we've seen it over the last number of weeks with the Winter Olympics as well. Because it's on the same time zone as us in Milan. It you know, you turn on the telly in the morning, it's on or in the evening, or you turn on the radio, there's always coverage and it's on the same time, and it's so easy to be like, right, well, we can pop over and see it. Yeah, and like for example, myself, I was at a race in Switzerland last week, and my flight home was from Milan in the evening. So I went to see the women's ice hockey. Oh, brilliant! It's epic. You know, you couldn't do that if it's in Piang Chang or it's in Beijing, if it's somewhere far away, because you're like, God, that's a big but I think that's like you said, it's like when you bring something close to people, it's about getting, it's about getting there. It's not it's I think that's our big push as well with the Women in Sports Week is like, here's a full week of action in Ireland. Like these are the events that are on that you can go to, you can you can get out and see our Irish women playing, you can bring that same energy. And like it is it's such a privilege to have access to those sports and to have access to such incredible athletes that you can go down and see. And I suppose that's the big message is like get out and and watch the events because that's really I think when you get that buy. And I think for me, anyway, I think when I see an athlete or I meet them, I'm like, oh okay, like I get it. I'm here, I get the coach, I get the balls, and like I think that's a really exciting opportunity for for both Paris World and Women's Worlds.

Living With Progressive Sight Loss

SPEAKER_01 12:07

And it was exciting in the closing ceremony to see the Italian flag come down and the French flag go up, so that it's gonna we're gonna get the same thing all over again in four years' time. Yeah, um, just before I let you go and on a more personal basis, you've you've mentioned there about the importance of seeing things, your own condition. How is that? Is that because it's a it's a progressive condition, isn't it? How have you been and how how what's the outlook like for the next sort of period of time?

SPEAKER_03 12:31

Yeah, I suppose like my eyesight started deteriorating when I was about 11 or 12. So that's when I found out that I had stargurts and I got the diagnosis. And my eyesight now would be considerably worse than it was then. But I think for me, as I've gotten older and as my eyesight has deteriorated, I've become I've become well adjusted and resilient to the fact that things are going to change. I think it's a good outlook in life to have, you know, that you have the opportunity you have today, so take it. I don't know what kind of eyesight I'm gonna have in the future. So for me, instead of getting upset or worried about what might or might not be, I try to take full advantage of use of what I do have now. And I think, like in a broader context, that's a nice way to live my life. Like if I take my eyesight out of the equation, like I have the opportunities I have today, so I want to take them. I don't want to leave something undone or unsaid, or you know what I mean? I want to go after things and I want to be fully present in in all that I do now because no one ever knows what what tomorrow has, and putting plans off till this and that. And so I think for me it's it's just been a really important like uh piece about how I live my life. And like I said, I don't know where my eyesight's gonna be, but that's uh a bridge I think I'm I feel that I'm well equipped to cross when I come to it, you know.

Closing And Listener Resources

SPEAKER_01 13:42

I think you've done so brilliantly so far that I don't think it'll be any bother to you at all when it's when when and when and if and how it comes. Um look, it's always a real pleasure to speak to you. It's such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for comfort. Cheers.

SPEAKER_03 13:54

Thank you so much for it.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

If you want to learn more about the work we do in the commercial and societal world of sport in Ireland in 2026, you can do so by visiting us at sportforbusiness.com. We produce daily news bulletins which you can subscribe to for free. And if you wish to subscribe to this podcast, you can do so wherever you get your podcast from. We've got events coming up in Cork looking at the power of sport to drive economic gains and economic benefit, and also at the question of name, image, likeness, and personality, which will be of interest to players, teams, and sponsors across the community as well. Thanks for taking the time to listen to us and we will see you again soon.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

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

SPEAKER_02 14:54

It's splitting, it's good, children's time, and the church,