Rachael Darragh: To hell and back in Olympic Games quest

Rachael Darragh will stand on her biggest stage yet this weekend, but her journey from Raphoe Badminton Club to the Olympic Games has not been straightforward.

She was on a beach in Albufeira when the call came from her uncle Daniel Magee, the high performance director with Badminton Ireland, to confirm that she made the cut: Her place at the Olympic Games was sealed.

The year previous was hectic and, as she soaked up the sun in southern Portugal, she momentarily struggled to process the moment.

“I still didn't believe it – even when I hung up the phone from the call with Dan,” she says. "I must have refreshed the page 30 times to make sure that my name was actually on the list.

“It was just a case of waiting to see after the qualification period ended. I was 34th out of 38, but I still needed to see my name confirmed on paper.

“The phone call gave me a really big rush of motivation. The Olympic Games: it's the most prestigious event in the world. If I hadn't qualified this time, I don't even know . . .”

The 26-year-old comes from a family immersed in the traditions of the sport. Her aunt, Chloe Magee, paved a path to the future when competing at three Olympic Games, creating a little nugget of history 16 years ago in Beijing when beating Kati Tolmoff to become the first Irish woman to win a badminton match at the Olympics.

Darragh was recovering from an injury while in Albufeira, still unsure as to whether or not she was bound for Paris. Deep down, she did know it, but didn't allow herself to process the fact even when it became a reality.

The road to Paris was a brutal series of badminton courts and airports, taking in 25 different tournaments over 52 weeks from May, 2023. There were times when she felt as if she was auditioning for the part of Phileas Fogg.

“You go through a year of absolute hell,” Darragh says. “The qualification process is one year long; and it is a long year. It's extremely difficult. You be going from place to place, Peru one week, Nigeria the next.

“It's difficult going between the tournaments because you don't get in the big training blocks. When you're a singles player, you're out there on your own and it's a lonely world. Every single match is so important because if you're not winning, you're not getting points.

“I was just in Portugal sort of trying to process the last year – and just hoping to God that I would get into the Olympic Games.”

In April, she touched down in Saarbrücken, Germany for the European Badminton Championships and was in must-win territory.

Ksenia Polikarpova had beaten her earlier in the year, but Darragh – in order to secure valuable points – had to overcome the Russian-born Israeli.

In the Saarlandhalle, Polikarpova took the first game, but Darragh hit back to win 21-23 21-15 21-17.

“That was an extremely high-pressure event,” the Raphoe woman says.

“It was important to keep the mentality right. All the pressure is what you put on yourself, but the chances of going to the Olympics gets slimmer if you're not winning in the qualification period. You have to take all the chances and use them.”

Last September, Darragh won bronze at the Lagos International Classic in Nigeria, beating Nurani Ratu Azzahra from the United Arab Emirates at the Teslim Balogun Stadium. In October, her career highlight arrived, reaching the quarter-finals of a World Tour event, the Abu Dhabi Masters, for the first time.

“I jumped over 100 spots the year before to just be able to start,” Darragh points out. “Breaking into the top 70 in the world was an aim and I managed to get to 59 after Abu Dhabi.

“It doesn't just happen at the start either. The years before are important too because you need to get to a place where you can actually start the qualification period and getting into the top 70 or 80 was to guarantee me into the challenge level tournaments.

“I ticked a lot of boxes through the year, but I wouldn't have been happy if I hadn't ticked the Olympic box. There are a lot of things I am happy about achieving, but every athlete's dream is the Olympic Games. Now, I can finally say 'I am an Olympian'.”

When Chloe Magee was taken back to the Diamond in Raphoe after her appearance at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijin, she was accompanied by her 10-year-old niece. Fast forward 16 years and that same niece is now on the posters adorning the perimeter of the badminton hall where they first cut their teeth in the sport.

The experience bagged by her aunt will be valuable and invaluable all at once.

She says: “I lived with Chloe through her qualification for Rio.

“It's so valuable to have seen the different things, to see how she was feeling, what she was eating, everything. A lot of things, I never experienced before so I have been quizzing her up, down and across.”

Darragh began playing in Grand Prix tournaments in Lisburn.

“They're not even a thing anymore,” she says. “In my first year at under-15s, I played at a quadrangular tournament in Milton Keynes and got a silver medal. That was one of the first times I had to travel to play.”

In 2015, the day after she finished her Leaving Certificate exams at the Royal and Prior Comprehensive School in Raphoe, Darragh boarded a plane for the European Games in Baku.

“The whole time through the exams, there was only one thing I was thinking about,” she says.

This weekend, the women's singles get underway in the Porte de la Chapelle Arena in Paris and Darragh will have Spain's Carolina Marin - the fourth seed and the gold medallist at the 2016 Olympics – and European Games bronze medallist Jenjira Stadelmann from Switzerland for company in Group L.

Her aim now somehow seems rather more elementary than the voyage to here: “I just want to turn up the best version of me – and at a better level than when I finished the qualifiers.”