Team Geared Up

DUBLIN, IRELAND (Team Geared Up) - Aisling covered this previously on “World Surf Kayaking Champion, Irish Paddler of the Year and 3rd year student at DCU, Lenny Kelleher - gets no funding.”
Following on from this, Steve McGowan emailed me today with this amazing, and frankly ridiculous, story:

Last night saw the DCU Clubs & Societies Awards take place in the Helix in Glasnevin. This saw some of DCU’s most successful students all get together to celebrate their achievements for the year and to further honor those who were particularly outstanding.

There was no surprise from anyone that Len Kelleher was one of eighteen nominated for an award for Best Individual Sporting Performance/Best Individual Administrator. For those of you who haven’t heard of Len before he is currently the World Surf Kayaking Champion and Irish Paddler of the Year but as Aisling reported before he receives no funding from his college.

The awards ceremony was great and all the winners were well deserving but there was one noticeable omission. Len Kelleher was again ignored by his college and he didn’t receive one of the five awards given out to the nominee’s in his category. Although the other award winners did tremendous work during the year to get nominated, none of them have a World Title to their name other than Len. It really is crazy that he gets no recognition for his achievements on the one night on the DCU calendar which is meant to be dedicated to celebrating these achievements.
In how many other sports does Ireland currently hold a World Title?

As an ex student of DCU, I struggle to keep a positive mind in this. To be honest, it just says a lot about the state of funding and support in general for minority sports in the country….. Hopefully his example will lead to future support and funding for others in his sport (we can only hope!).

Image Credit: Len Kelleher during the finals at Kayak Surf World Championships in Bakio, Mundaka October 2007

- Neal :) -