Tricia Heberle was named as the Olympic Federation of Ireland's Chef de Mission through until the 2020 Olympic games in Tokyo.
A 1983 Hockey World Cup medalist with Australia, she joined Tuesday's Off the Ball to talk a bit about herself and she outlined her plans for the next four years.
"I spent some time in the UK, in the UK system, coaching England and Great Britain," she told Eoin. "I returned to Australia and assumed a role as high performance director with Australian Hockey and then decided that I'd spent a lot of time in one sport and felt I had a lot to offer to a whole range of sports.
"So, the last two years, I've worked with seven different Olympic sports in and around Ireland, which has been a fantastic experience - and most recently spent the last 12 months working with the OFI and just starting to build some of our blocks planning for Tokyo."
Speaking about the difficulties Irish athletes face against the bigger nations, she said: "I think sometimes when it's about ambition - people can be a little bit risk averse. I mean, it's a really tough world out there. Sport has a lot of investment into it at the moment and when you look at some of the bigger countries - it's very hard for Ireland to compete.
"But what I love about the Irish is they have this wonderful attitude and whether that's an attitude which comes from at times being the underdog or whether it's an attitude for wanting to really prove themselves against the very best in the world.
"So I actually believe we've had a whole range of results over the last few years which show that the whole High Performance System is emerging and once you start to back up World Championships, medals in Europe, medals in Olympic games and medals in World Cup and Championship competition over a period of time - you actually know that you're heading in a right direction.
Looking ahead to the Tokyo Olympics, she said: "Our targets are, as I say, improving on our performances from Rio so if we're in a position where some of the results we've had across the last 6-12 months - we can continue to support those sports and those athletes in a way whereby they qualify for the Olympics first and that they come into Tokyo with a high possibility of success.
"I think rather than setting a number a target of 10 gold medals or 6 gold medals which puts a lot of unnecessary pressure on people - I think we've really got to support them on how they come in. We know that our athletes can win medals," she added.
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