The curtain came down on the 2018 Para Swimming Allianz European Championships yesterday with Ellen Keane adding Gold to the bronze she won for Ireland on Friday night and the Silver won by 16-year-old Nicole Turner on Saturday.
The medals capped a performance from the eight-strong team that included appearing in 25 finals, recording 13 personal best and 21 season-best times.
From a sporting perspective, those are the numbers that matter most.
The small army of volunteers who made the week work, the media who covered the moments that mattered and the family, friends and fans who made all the noise deserve enormous credit for making a great week come to life
Sport at its greatest is always about more than numbers. It is about the swell of your heart as you realise that you are watching something special. The emotion of letting go in a way that you rarely if ever do in any aspect of life.
And it goes further it can change the way we look at our own lives, and communities as well as those of others we have alway perhaps viewed differently.
We are grateful today to Allianz Marketing and Communications Director Damien O’Neill for this interview with Pundit Arena during the Championships that sums up the power of sport and what the last seven days have been like.