The Meath footballers came from nowhere this year to win the senior All Ireland title and have now revealed they took their inspiration from Olympic cycling champion Anna Kiesenhofer.
The Austrian was unfancied and largely unknown when she took to the road race start line in Tokyo. She went in an early breakaway and then dropped those she was with a long way for the line; going into TT mode and taking gold.
While Kiesenhofer benefitted from a poor team ride by the Dutch women, she also had great legs on the day, is a very strong TT rider and also planned meticulously for the road race.
A mathematician professor at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, she worked out exactly what she would need to do to win from the early breakaway and executed her plan perfectly.
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Back in home in Ireland, the Meath women went into the TG4 All Ireland final against Dublin. Meath won the intermediate All Ireland last year and were promoted to senior football as a result; a massive step up.
They went on an incredible run and went into the final to play against the Dubs, who were defending their senior championship crown from last year. Against all the odds, underdogs Meath pulled it off.
Their defender, All Star winner Emma Troy, recently said when Meath coach Paul Garrigan shared the photos and stories of sporting underdogs on a team bonding day before the All Ireland final, it was Kiesenhofer whose story resonated most and really inspired.
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“Paul sent photos into the WhatsApp group. He split us into three groups that day and sent them in. He did out a Word document with ten or 12 photos of different individuals or teams that had been underdogs,” Troy told The42.
“He got us together, Niamh O’Sullivan was on fire, she knew nearly every picture. The rest of us were struggling a bit now but she was brilliant for it.
“There were some like Leicester City and Naomi Osaka that were obvious. Then there were other people who he mentioned. He just spoke about what challenges they overcame, how they were underdogs, their odds, how they overcame being an underdog and became the champions.
“With Anna Kiesenhofer, it was more because she was part-time, she didn’t have any professional team or management helping her. She was working as a mathematician at the time.
“Obviously she put in the training for however many years, she has been cycling for a long time, but going into the race being a complete underdog. Paul said she was way down the list in terms of odds. Just coming out on top, no help from anybody, just pure determination from herself.
“It was the fact that he had us so well prepared and there was so much discussion going around, all these different individuals and teams, what they had achieved. I can’t remember what the odds were between ourselves and Dublin at the time but they were favourites to win.
“He had written down some of the odds of all of these individuals as well, just showing us that it doesn’t really matter, the numbers aren’t important, it’s the work ethic at the end.
“It was nice to hear of so many other individuals and groups being in the same situation as us and being able to overcome it.”
