A STUDENT at the Mid West School for the Deaf, who also suffers from cerebral palsy has brought honour to herself, her school, and the whole country by winning the CP Football’s Nations Cup competition.
Ali O’Connor (19) travelled to Denmark last week with her teammates as part of the Irish Women’s CP Soccer Team where they took on Denmark, Spain, and Holland. And won all around them.
Winning the Nation’s Cup, Ireland now qualifies for the IFCPF World Cup next year – the most prestigious event in the CP Football international competition cycle – where the top teams in the world compete.
Speaking to the Limerick Post from Korsor in Denmark, through her father Martin, Ali said she is “extremely excited and very proud to represent Ireland”.
She said the intensive training for the league was tough and the competition fierce “but I have great team mates. We all support each other. I’m the only deaf player but some of the team even learned sign language so they could talk to me.”
Playing in goal, Ali said, is “a big responsibility, but there’s a great team there with me.”
Ali, from Kilkee in County Clare, travels to Limerick school every day and, for six weeks before going to Denmark, she went to Dublin every Saturday for intensive training with the team.
“It was a lot of travel for her. She was on the road at 6am and didn’t get home until evening, and training in between. A 13-hour day is particularly tough because she has cerebral palsy but she pushed on and we’re very proud of her,” her dad Martin said.
Martin said he and Ali’s whole family are very proud of her and the the team.
“It’s fantastic to see kids with a disability competing in an international competition like this and getting to travel,” he told the Limerick Post.
A spokesperson for the Mid West School for the Deaf said they are “extremely proud” of their student.
“She has overcome many challenges to get to where she is, including having to organise an interpreter for her training sessions so that she can communicate with her coaching staff. We think she is an amazing ambassador for our school and an inspiration to students and staff alike”.
