The OFI is conducting interviews with female high-performance coaches to fix gender imbalance ©OFI

The Olympic Federation of Ireland (OFI) has announced that they are producing a series of profiles on the country's high performance female coaches in celebration of the 2023 International Women's Day.

The first two to be interviewed were Hockey Ireland performance director Lisa Jacob and Athletics Ireland Olympic coach Noelle Morrissey.

Jacobs spoke about her experience in high performance sport and how she feels about gender equality.

"In high-performance sport, the conversation is not usually about gender, but about whether you’re good enough for the job," said Jacobs.

"The problem often is that women just don’t believe they’re good enough to get involved."

Morrissey, who joined the Women in Sport High-Performance (WISH), which is a programme created to help coaches learn and develop, talked about her thoughts on the training she received.

Noelle Morrissey, left, and Lisa Jacobs, right, were interviewed by the OFI ©ANOCA
Noelle Morrissey, left, and Lisa Jacobs, right, were interviewed by the OFI ©ANOCA

"I didn’t have the confidence initially to do it but, when it transpired that I had such a good relationship with my athletes, I had to upgrade my coaching skills to match them," said Morrissey.

High performance coaching has shown an imbalance in gender equality, as only 8 per cent of Team Ireland coaches in Tokyo 2020 were females.

This has opened an opportunity for the OFI to conduct a study where they profile those female coaches and collect data in order to fix the gender imbalance.

The OFI will be interviewing a few other coaches, including cycling's Francine Meehan, triathlon's Eleanor Condon and rugby's Katie Fitzsimons.