After teaching French for 37 years, Kay is delighted to be using her language skills to volunteer for Team Ireland at the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics.
She was one of 1,000 applicants for the two volunteer positions with Team Ireland. She will spend 62 days in Paris supporting Team Ireland at the Olympics and Paralympics. She is the National Olympic Committee assistant, which means that she is the liaison between the organizing committee and the team. It’s a position that involves coordinating people and information to make sure that the athletes are supported while in Paris. She likes that there’s lots of variety to sports event volunteering. “You have to think on your feet…it really depends.”
Kay has sampled every kind of volunteer role from collecting international VIP spectators to making beds and fetching water bottles. She spent 2 months in Pyeongchang for the 2018 Winter Olympics and has volunteered at four Invictus Games, a multi-sport event for wounded, injured and sick servicemen and women. She also loves volunteering for events in Ireland. A favourite was promoting the Women’s Rugby World Cup in schools and community facilities in 2017. She also volunteered at the World Gymnastics Championships when Rhys McClenaghan won and was in the room with his team after winning. She remembers that he was in tears and everyone was so happy for him.
Kay’s favourite part about volunteering at major sporting events is “seeing the athletes in competition. It’s the joy of them having reached their goal. It might not be the gold but it might be a PR or just being selected. There’s a euphoria! You become part of the team. You’re a minor cog but they couldn’t run any major sporting event without volunteers.”
Kay has seen big moments, like when Shane Lowry won the Open, or being in an Olympic Friends and Families Box with a family who watching their daughter win a gold medal, but for her, it’s just as much about the small moments. “The village is their home away from home” she says and watching an athlete get her hair plaited by her captain the night before her race makes the whole experience special and personal.
“There’s something about being a volunteer that unites people,” she says and has friends in Olympic volunteers from all across the globe. She’s picked up some Korean and made close friends with a Chilean volunteer who had her and her husband over to her family home. (In the picture above, Kay is joined by her fellow volunteer for Team Norway.)
Merci Kay and bon courage Team Ireland! ☘️
