Olga O'Sullivan: Outstanding Achievement award winner has special motivation
Ogla O'Sullivan, Outstanding Achievement award winner, with her team of Anne Marie Murphy, Marcus Austin and Paul de Waard at The Echo Women in Sport Awards at the Metropole Hotel. Picture: Eddie O'Hare
When Olga O’Sullivan’s husband Colm passed away in July 2020, the Ballincollig native who was born in Russia wanted to honour his life.
Flashforward five years later and the marathon swimmer has been given The Echo Women in Sport Outstanding Achievement Award after becoming the first Irish person, and third individual overall, to complete the MOWS crossing from Madieria to Desertas.
The athlete did the straight line 26.6km distance between the two islands in 08:43:11, and she followed that up by taking part in a 20.5km relay between Fastnet to Baltimore last December.
These races are just a small snapshot into a career born out of love, and a passion for the outdoors.
“I like the outdoors – outdoors is my happy place,” O’Sullivan explained.
“I used to do long-distance running as well. I like endurance sports. How did I get into marathon swimming?
"After my husband Colm passed away in July 2020, I decided to do something in his memory.
"I was training for a mountain round, the one where you do a lot around the mountain in 24 hours.
“I was training for that and in short, I had a running injury that was very stubborn just because of the crazy mileage I was doing at that time and it just wasn’t going away. I tried to come back from it and it just wasn’t happening.
"I really wanted to do something after the Covid restrictions lifted in his memory.
“I was swimming loads because I was injured. I said instead of the mountain round, why don’t I do a marathon swim somewhere in Ireland? That is how I signed up first around.
"That is basically it and it led to longer distance and swimming for the first time with a boat, support, and all of that. That is really how I got into it.”
Behind all of this is 100s of hours of training, no matter what the weather or season is.
“I train in open water a lot – in winter I don’t have a choice because I run out of daylight before I finish work and we have storms etc and I hop into the pool,” she went through her training program.
“Like I was in the pool this morning before work. Otherwise, about six months out of the year, I don’t go near the pool.
"I train at Sandycove and Myrtleville. I train at Iniscarra sometimes. Mostly in the sea but sometimes in the river as well.”
The Echo Women in Sport Outstanding Achievement Award is one of many picked up by the athlete who was raised in St Petersburg.
As nice as this is, O’Sullivan is happy to focus on swimming and doing what she loves in her happy place.
“Ultimately – I enjoy it and to do any distances in any sport you ultimately have to enjoy the process,” O’Sullivan explained.
“Okay, you’re training for a specific event whether it is a massive event or a solo event. Ultimately something can go wrong on the day.
"You could get injured or it may not happen. So you have to enjoy the actual process as well.
“The community of runners and the community of swimmers are very important as well. If you come to Sandycove in the summer at 6am, you are going to find the car park full of cars.
"It does make it easier if you are going to get up at five and drive there.”
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