Confirmation of Olympic place ends anxious wait for Darragh

Rachael Darragh will make her Olympics debut in Paris

It was an anxious wait for Rachael Darragh to see if she had achieved her dream of qualifying for the Olympics.

After an arduous year of travelling the world picking up points on the badminton circuit, when the qualification window closed at the end of April, the 26-year-old was one place outside of booking her ticket to Paris this summer.

"The last couple of weeks I think I've experienced every emotion that is known to mankind. I feel like I've been happy, I've been sad," admitted Darragh.

"Looking back on the year, I've actually done some really good things and I was really proud. So then it's really hard to have done a lot of things I had written down as goals and still not have been inside that first list of qualification."

But when Xuefei Qi from France finished among the top 38 in the Olympic rankings, and as host nation they were already guaranteed a place, that spot was reallocated to the first reserve. Darragh found out last week that she is heading to Paris for her first Games.

"When I actually heard the words 'you have qualified', it was almost like - is this real?

"But yeah, it was amazing. It was really, really nice and it's good to know so early as well. It was really incredible to actually just see my name on that page."

Rachael Darragh sought advice from three-time Olympian Chloe Magee

Darragh is from the Irish badminton heartland of Raphoe, Co. Donegal, home of the Magee family. Rachael is the niece of three-time Olympian Chloe Magee, although there are only eight years between them.

Chloe became the first Irish woman to win a badminton match at an Olympics in 2008 and along with her brother Sam won Ireland’s first ever European Championships medal, a bronze, in 2017 and were also third at the 2015 and 2019 European Games.

Last year she took up a new role as national development manager for Badminton Ireland.

It is also where Darragh's mum is from. Her father comes from Castlederg in County Tyrone. Not surprisingly, they were her first phone call on hearing the good news.

"I rang my parents because when the Olympic qualifying ended I went home to Donegal for two weeks and I told them I'm not going, and my dad was really upset and my mum was a bit more trying to keep me positive.

"But the first thing I did was call my parents and they were like: 'What? How? You told us two weeks ago you're not going!'

"They're really delighted, really happy for me."

Rachael gets advice from Auntie Chloe

It's a happy ending to a year that didn’t start well at the European Games in Krakow last June.

“I think I had prepared so well before the European Games. I was in really good physical shape, mental shape and everything was ready to go, and it only actually really hit me when I got there and was walking into the arena for that first match.

"It was like a flood of nerves and emotions just came over me I hadn't really prepared for.

"I came back from the European Games and really took a hard look at things, because if I was going on another year of that qualification journey I would need to change something so that didn't happen again.

She turned to her aunt Chloe for help and advice.

"I think one of the most beneficial things that has actually happened in my life for preparing me for the Olympic Games was living with her during the times that she was trying to qualify for the Olympic Games.

"At the time I didn't really understand why she was feeling the way she was feeling, but now looking back I completely get every emotion she felt and why she felt them.

"It's another year of tournaments and it is just like any other tournament year that we've played before, but it's a whole new level of stress and that end goal is massive. Some people will only ever go to the Olympics once in their life."

Darragh was only 10 years old when Chloe competed in her first Olympics in Beijing in 2008. Four years later she was winning the UK Schools title and soon after was Chloe’s training partner.

Now it's her turn to keep up the family legacy.

"I think one of my very first memories of ever dreaming of going to the Olympics was sitting in my kitchen watching Chloe play in Beijing, so that was the first time I was like, 'OK, I want to do that'.

"I want to go to the Olympics and having seen her go to two more after that has also really inspired me to know that it's possible.

"That's what you can do if you train hard and work hard every single day."