David Harte has been counting down the days to these Olympics on a whiteboard at home, and he tells KIERAN McCARTHY it’s a team effort that has led the Irish No. 1 to Paris
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THERE is a whiteboard in David Harte’s kitchen at home in Utrecht that the Irish hockey legend and his oldest daughter, Georgia, have used to count down the days to these Olympic Games.
After the Irish team clinched the last qualification spot for Paris back in January, with 187 days to go to the opening ceremony, that whiteboard took on extra importance.
‘It’s not just a number on a board,’ David explains.
‘It was a constant reminder to me of what I have been aiming for and working towards for these past few years. It was also a bit of fun with Georgia that we were counting down the days – it has added another dimension that I can share these unique moments with with my daughters and my wife.’
The build-up to his second Olympics is a world away from when he captained the Irish men’s hockey team in the Rio Games. Since 2016 David, now 36 years old, has married his sweetheart Lyn Browne – ‘the incredible woman who makes all this possible,’ he says – and they have two daughters, Georgia (5) and Ava (1).
Life is certainly busier, he laughs, the shot-stopper’s giant hands that helped him twice be crowned the world’s best hockey goalkeeper must now juggle a lot more. His broad shoulders must carry more than ever before.
‘It’s been a tricky phase in one sense, being a professional athlete and trying to go to another Olympic Games, while being a dad and husband, and the bottom line is that I couldn’t do all this without my wife at my side and the support of my family,’ David explains. It helps that Lyn played hockey, too, with Ulster Elks, so she knows the world of hockey, how it works and what it takes to become the best in the world – that’s a title the six-foot five-inch David held in both 2015 and 2016.
FAMILY MATTERS: David Harte celebrates SV Kampong's 2024 Dutch men’s title success with his wife Lyn and their daugthers, Georgia and Ava.
‘Without Lyn I wouldn’t be anywhere,’ continues the man from Ringrone, just outside Kinsale.
‘She took unpaid leave from her work to relocate back to Belfast with the girls to her family home while we had our pre-Olympic training base in Banbridge. I have demanded a lot from them, been selfish in my own ways, but knowing you have the support and backing of someone so special, and we have an incredibly good partnership, I owe an awful lot to her.’
Lyn’s role in David’s story is key, so he takes huge pride in being able to share his hockey highs with her, Georgia and Ava. Take his latest club triumph with SV Kampong in May when they won the league title in The Netherlands for the first time since 2018 – David shared that magical moment with his family, as well as his twin brother Conor (another Irish hockey legend) and his daughter Marlena, who is David’s goddaughter. That was a day to remember, with the hope more memories will be made in Paris in the weeks ahead.
‘What I celebrated with Kampong was phenomenal, but this will be another level again. I can’t wait,’ he says, his sense of excitement heightened by the knowledge that it wasn’t an easy route to his second Olympic Games.
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Thursday, May 13th, 2021 – that was the day that David ripped the hamstring in his left leg so badly saving a shot in a penalty shoot-out that he feared his career was over.
‘It was a 19-centimetre rupture. My hamstring came apart, more or less. It was the worst injury that I’ve had.’
His first question when he met with the orthopedic surgeon: is this career-ending? David, 33 at the time, was reassured there was a route back. That relief is a feeling that lingers, the sliver of light before the dawn after his darkest day.
The former Ballinspittle National School and Bandon Grammar School student had to embark on the long – and often lonely – rehab route, but his mindset is an insight into why this West Cork man has racked up 242 international caps for Ireland and, at 36, is still first choice.
‘My dad uses a description about me, that I never let the grass grow under my feet, that I am always looking for the next thing, always looking to advance in different ways of life, whether that’s on or off the pitch. That is a mindset as well. You want to achieve more. You want to push yourself,’ David explains.
Could he return from a career-threatening injury? Challenge accepted. By that November, ahead of schedule, he was back in goal, keeping a clean sheet in a 2-0 win against HGC. Business as usual.
That desire to return to the Olympic stage was there too. It’s been a constant since Rio in 2016. David remembers a conversation he had at those Games where he was told that his first Olympics will be incredibly special, but his second will be even better. That stuck with him. If there was impostor syndrome in 2016, a newbie to the Olympic world, he now understands how it all works: the Olympic Village, the emotion, the competition, mixing with the best athletes in the world, what’s needed to survive at the top where the oxygen is thinner. Bring it on, Paris.
‘I have never appreciated something in my sporting career as much as this,’ he reveals.
‘It’s been the hardest one I have ever had to work for because we've had to juggle a lot of balls, whereas eight years ago I wasn’t married, didn’t have kids, and my body was a bit younger …. Being 36 years old now and knowing what it has taken this last year and the years before it, all I wanted to do since Rio was to get back to the Olympic arena. It was something short of an obsession. To realise that and become a two-time Olympian will be an indescribable feeling.’
That’s a feeling that was snatched from David and the Irish men’s hockey team in 2019 when the Green Machine controversially lost to Canada in a defeat that denied them a place at the Tokyo Olympics. David sat out that two-legged play-off because of an ankle injury, the despair afterwards was one of the lowest feelings he has had. He was adamant that wouldn’t be the final chapter in his international hockey career – and it isn’t. Time to make more magical memories with his family.
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On Saturday, July 6th last, the Irish men’s hockey squad selected for the Paris Olympics gathered in the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Blanchardstown, Dublin for the Olympic Federation of Ireland’s Family Day. The official jersey presentation took place, and David got to share this moment with his wife Lyn, his parents, Kieran and Dora, and there was a surprise appearance from John Hobbs of Cork Harlequins; he was the reason David and Conor joined the club.
‘It was a lovely family day,’ David smiles, ‘spent with my nearest and dearest.
‘It was great for my parents to be a part of it, they have been there from the start of this journey, and were the reason why I went into goalkeeping. I was only chatting to my dad recently about it, the U16 interpro weekend that I played – I was only 14 and my dad said to me “if you’re going to take this seriously, I’ll look into buying you your first goalkeeper equipment”. The rest is history.
SPECIAL MOMENT: David Harte with parents, Kieran and Dora, and wife Lyn during the Team Ireland Paris 2024 Family & Friends Day.(Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile)
He learned a lot from his parents, his father used to coach Conor and David at underage level with Courcey Rovers GAA Club and his parents spent countless hours driving the Harte siblings to their various sporting commitments, and David leans on that in his own approach now. Georgia has started hockey training on Saturday mornings in Utrecht. An indoor session, it lasts 45 minutes, an introduction to the sport her dad has mastered, but David’s not a pushy parent.
‘I am the only parent who goes without a stick in my hand,’ he says, the irony not lost on him.
‘I want Georgia to explore for herself, and not to have this stereotypical pushy dad just because I have reached heights that I want the same for her. I just want her to enjoy it.’
That enjoyment is key, whether it’s five-year-old Georgia or 36-year-old David. It’s why the big man for the big occasion has carved out a career that keeps on giving. It’s why he recently signed a new contract with Kampong that will keep him at the club for a 13th consecutive season. It’s why he will wear the Ireland No. 1 jersey in Paris. It’s why he feels in his best physical shape ever.
‘I have often said age is just a mindset,’ he says.
‘I’d be lying if I said it was always a constant belief that I would get back to another Olympics, but if you speak to athletes across all the disciplines, there are always those nagging doubts, those setbacks, those little voices inside that you try to block out, but you have to rise above it all.
‘I have been pushing myself, I want to get to an extra level, a level I have never been to, and I can say I am at that right now – or hopefully looking to peak in Paris knowing my body is in the best physical shape. More importantly, my mind too, that comes with experience, with knowing yourself a bit more, and it also comes with being in an incredibly privileged position off the pitch as well with family and friends supporting you all the way, and with my daughters as part of this too.’
When the Hartes return to Utrecht post-Paris, the whiteboard in the kitchen will need a new target, but in its place will be the incredible memories created over the weeks ahead.
For Lyn, her husband will be a two-time Olympian. For Georgia and Ava, when they’re older they’ll realise why daddy’s Olympic tattoo of the five rings means so much to him. For David, he’ll know his dream of playing in another Olympics was made possible by the love and support of family by his side. Their Olympic connection will endure long after the closing ceremony. Memories to last a lifetime.
