Patrick Comerford
Cormac Comerford from Glenageary, Co Dublin, finished 34th in the men’s downhill today on the opening day of the Alpine skiing at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, where Franjo von Allmen from Switzerland delivered a sensational performance to win the first gold medal of the Games.
Cormac Comerford made his Olympic debut this afternoon in skiing’s queen event at the Stelvio Ski Centre in Bormio, finishing the 3,442-metre course in a time of 2:04.40. He started out last among the field and came 34th among the 36 starters, well pleased with his effort on a highly technical, and in parts treacherous, course.
‘It’s an incredible feeling to make my Olympic debut today in this weather, on this slope,’ he told The Irish Times. ‘To bring it down Stelvio is a huge achievement, coming from the artificial slope back home. There’s a huge sense of pride. I made a few mistakes in the run, it felt smoother in training, but that’s racing and I’m really proud to have brought it down.’
‘I’m excited to be here,’ he said. ‘If I’m proud, I hope I can make Ireland proud as well.’ He was the first member of Team Ireland to compete in this year’s Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina when he hit the slopes on the opening day of the games.
Ireland has been sending teams to the Winter Olympics for many years, but it is 24 years since Dublin-born Clifton Wrottesley (Lord Wrottesley) came up one place shy of a medal for Ireland in the skeleton at the Salt Lake City Games in 2002.
Cormac Comerford’s Olympic scholarship meant fewer pressures in a sport that costs him €40,000 a year to compete in. This is important for him, as he remembers how hard it was when first started out professionally after starting to study engineering at TU Dublin (Technological University Dublin). His summer work included ‘a lot of sailing instruction and labour on construction sites.’
He says he spent too many of his early years on the circuit sleeping in bus stations and carting a ski bag the weight of his own body to different events and different countries in order to shave pennies off his budget.
It took him six years to qualify for his engineering degree because of the time spent away from home. He could, as he joked himself, be a doctor by now. But scholarships from Trinity, FBD and from the Olympic Federation of Ireland were critical in allowing him to stay on track and in pursuit of his dream.
He competed in the World Championships in 2017 for first time. He is now at his peak, among the top five per cent in the world, 23rd in the World Championships, ‘and hopefully going a lot higher.’
Cormac Comerford found that breaking into a sport where Ireland have no tradition was hard, and his achievements were often belittled. ‘I remember watching Shane O’Connor on the TV at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and thinking, ‘Imagine if I could do that, how cool would that be?’ So going into Milan-Cortina would be massive for me. To achieve that childhood dream would be the cherry on the cake.’
When Cormac Comerford was eight and growing up in Glenageary, his aunt first took him up the dry ski slopes in Kilternan in south Co Dublin. Now, 21 years later, after his fourth qualification attempt, Comerford is among the four Irish athletes taking part in Milano Cortina 2026.
The 25th Winter Olympics are spread across six locations in north Italy this year. They opened last night (6 February 2026) and continue for the next two weeks until Sunday 22 February. Cormac Comerford’s journey there has been has been a difficult one and his childhood dream of reaching the Olympics has been tested repeatedly over the years.
‘It’s been a childhood dream of mine, since I first put on a pair of skis, up at the Ski Club of Ireland. I fell in love with the sport, and when I got to watch Shane O’Connor at the Olympics in 2010, that’s when the seed was really sown’, he says.
Cormac is competing in all four events in Milano Cortina: the downhill, super-G, giant slalom and slalom. He has also competed in five World Championships, when he finished inside top-30 in the European Cup. The three other Irish athletes are Anabelle Zurbay (17), who was born in Minnesota; Thomas Maloney Westgård born on the island of Leka in Norway to a Galway mother and Norwegian father, and Ben Lynch, who has lived in Vancouver since he was three.
Cormac Comerford previously reached the minimal qualifying criteria in alpine skiing for Sochi 2014, Pyeongchang 2018, and Beijing 2022, but each time he missed out on the strict quota for Irish representatives. Yet he never let go of that dream. ‘Being an Irish ski racer can also be incredibly lonely, there aren’t many of us, it’s a really hard path to forge.’
‘There were a few turning points,’ he recalls, ‘like when I started in Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT), my whole career was hanging on me getting a scholarship there. Thankfully they believed in me, I got some extra support, and it was enough to help me keep the dream alive.’
None of his family are skiers. He grew up playing GAA underage with Cuala, alongside Con O’Callaghan, and was also involved in rugby, hockey, sailing, and surfing. But, ultimately, skiing came out on top.
His specialist event is the slalom, the mix of technical and physical demands, dodging between 50 or 60 gates, 8 to 11 metres apart, while flat-out downhill at 60 kph for between 40 seconds to a minute.
His first event was on Saturday, the day after the opening ceremony in the San Siro Stadium in Milan.
It is 34 years since Team Ireland first competed at the Winter Olympics, at Albertville 1992, and the four athletes selected for Milano Cortina bringing to 37 the number of Irish Winter Olympians. For Cormac, the lifelong dream is finally being realised.
Cormac Comerford works as a mechanical engineer in the off-season, and spends most of the winter travelling Europe, training and competing. He recalls how he spent too many of his early years on the circuit sleeping in bus stations and carting a ski bag the weight of his own body to different events and different countries in order to shave pennies off his budget.
Cormac Comerford grew up in Glenageary in south Dublin. He was a sporty child, lining out for Cuala in both GAA codes, and playing rugby at Newpark Comprehensive in Blackrock. His mother’s passion for sailing also meant he spent a lot of time on the water. But trips with his aunt to Ireland’s only artificial ski slope in Kilternan caught his imagination from the age of eight.
He loved the individuality of downhill skiing, its niche status in Ireland appealing because it meant Comerford could hone his craft under the radar. ‘There was no noise around the sport, especially in Ireland,’ he says. ‘It was just me in my own world with the racing. That's what really pulled me in and kept me hooked.’
He is competing in four different events at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics and faces three more Alpine skiing events: on Wednesday (11 February) in the Super-G (Alpine Skiing) in Bormio; next Saturday (14 February), in the Giant Slalom Run 1 and 2 (Alpine Skiing) in Bormio; and on Monday 16 February in the Slalom Run 1 and 2 (Alpine Skiing), also in Bormio.
The closing ceremony is in Verona on Sunday 22 February.
