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“So you wish to conquer in the Olympic Games, my friend? And I too, by the Gods, and a fine thing it would be!”

Since the 1970s when IOC President Avery Brundage stepped down the Olympics has steadily lost the lustre of amateurism. Nowadays the only sport that remains truly amateur is boxing and that is a shame. Until now that is.

“But first mark the conditions and the consequences, and then set to work.”

If the Olympic movement is after a truly amateur sport, where else to look than pursuits Gaelic And Athletic? Where a man or woman does their day’s work and then heads back out the door to chase a higher love? To stand exhausted, exhilarated on the field of battle, playing only for the badge? If baseball is an Olympic sport, then why not hurling and football and camogie?

“You will have to put yourself under discipline; to eat by rule, to avoid cakes and sweetmeats; to take exercise at the appointed hour whether you like it or no, in cold and heat; to abstain from cold drinks and from wine at your will; in a word, to give yourself over to the trainer as to a physician.”

Yes, we have a dream, that the camogs of Wexford, and Tipp, from Cork and Derry can pit themselves against the so solid crew of Uzbekistan or the nippy corner forwards from Japan; against the high fielding of an elegant South African side, replete with tall masai warrior princesses i lar na pairce. We have a dream where the iomanadors from the red hills of Georgia, hurl against their brothers from Russia. We have a dream where Eoin Kelly and Henry Shefflin each raises a clenched hand, not in a black power salute, but rising instead to claim a ball in the small parallelogram of the Olympic stadium to claim Olympic Gold. We have a dream.

“Then in the conflict itself you are likely enough to dislocate your wrist or twist your ankle, to swallow a great deal of dust, or to be severely thrashed, and, after all these things, to be defeated.”

We have a dream, in Olympic gaelic football, the shamatuerism of the Iron Curtain will be replaced by the blanket defence, the two-man full-forward line, and the mercurial centre forward. We have a dream where Kerryman, Corkman, Dub and bearded Tyroneman will win gold, judged not by the colour of their shirt but by the character of their play. We have a dream.

And the cry will go up, under the five Olympic Rings: “Free at least, free at least – for God’s sake Ref, a free at least.”

Quotes from Epictetus