Meet the Irish Paralympian on a mission to help visually impaired people
get involved in sports
A former Team Ireland Paralympian who is visually impaired wants to help
other people with sight conditions get involved in sport.
Theo McDonald
Joe Geraghty was born into a family of blind and visually impaired
people, but he didn’t let this hold him back when it came to becoming an
athlete.
Indeed, he has achieved amazing feats in the world of sport.
Mr Geraghty (67) won his first race at the inaugural May Games, now
dubbed MayFest, in 1981. Two years later, he won a silver medal at the
500m at the IBSA European Games in Bulgaria.
In 1984, he represented Ireland at the Paralympic Games in the US.
Now, Mr Geraghty, who is based in Dublin, wants to give back.
As one of the founding members of Vision Sport Ireland, he has dedicated
his life to encouraging people born with visual impairments to take on
sport.
Having served as chairman of the body for several years, he was recently
elected president. He has written a book called Out of Sight, hoping to
inspire those with visual impairments to navigate the world of sport.
Mr Geraghty hopes the book will encourage aspiring athletes and give
them practical guidance.
“It’s not going to be an absolute bible, but it’s going to show the way,
I hope, to a lot of people, of how to overcome and move on,” he said.
The book also gives advice to visually impaired people on how to adapt
to various sports. “I will take readers through all the main sports, but
I’m not going to give you the rule book. I’m going to give you enough
information to understand the sports,” he said.
Mr Geraghty describes the people who engage with Vision Sport Ireland as
his “customers”.
Some notable customers who feature in the book include Paralympic gold
medallist Jason Smyth, who Mr Geraghty describes as a “superstar”.
Smyth, a sprinter, is considered legally blind, with his central vision
impaired because of Stargardt disease. He won six gold medals across
four different Paralympics from 2008 to 2020.
Another customer Mr Geraghty writes about in his book is former New York
police officer Paul McCormack.
“After 9/11, his sight kind of deteriorated rapidly as a result of being
underground trying to recover those caught in the rubble,” Mr Geraghty said.
Mr McCormack, who had moved to New York from Ireland, started to realise
his vision was impaired after failing a sharp-shooting test. Thirteen
years after moving to the US, he returned to Ireland with his wife
Nicola and the rest of his family.
Back home, he discovered Vision Sport Ireland, which gave him a love of
golf.
“Friends were playing in a fundraising outing and were short a player.
They invited me and offered to support me,” Mr McCormack says in the book.
“I was hesitant and felt I’d slow them down. I played, kn ocked in a few
pars amid the snowballs, but the bug was back. I was introduced to Irish
Blind Golf and I haven’t looked back.”
He has achieved success in his sport, having won both the British and US
Blind Golf Opens. He has also obtained two Vision Cups, described in the
book as “the Ryder Cup of Blind Golf”.
Mr Geraghty said most of his customers would have played a sport before
suffering a visual impairment. He said he tries to instil in them a
“positive addiction” by playing a sport they love.
“If it’s somebody who has had a loss of sight in their adult years, as
part of the healing process, I would say look back at what you liked to
do before your sudden drop of sight or total eye loss and if sport is
one of them, don’t rule out returning to sport,” he said.
His number one piece of advice to those returning to sport following a
physical impairment is to adapt the sport at a slow pace.
“A lot of footballers will you tell they are never going to run and that
they hate running… and then when you say ‘just come out with me, let’s
try at a slower pace’, then eventually, they get involved in Saturday
morning runs,” Mr Geraghty said.
There’s no sport that cannot be played with a little bit of adaptation,
he said.
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https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/meet-the-irish-paralympian-on-a-mission-to-help-visually-impaired-people-get-involved-in-sports/a1744492965.html?
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