European Youth Olympic Festival Team Details

The European Youth Olympic festival will be held in Tbilisi, Georgia from July 26th to August 1st. Over 3800 athletes from 50 European countries will arrive in Tbilisi to participate in the different sports of the European Youth Olympic Festival. For the first time in its history, the EYOF will run for six days of competition.

The Irish Squad for Athletics

The Irish team is made up of both track and field athletes. Competition to get one of the coveted places on the 16 strong athletics team was extremely high and due to the EYOF rules allowing only one athlete per country in each discipline, there were some talented young athletes who did not make the Team. However the future looks bright for the first European Youth Championships in 2016 if the strength in depth of the young athletes seeking EYOF qualification is anything to go by.

The Irish Team for EYOF can be viewed here.

Sprinting for Success

Ciara Neville (Emerald A.C.) 100m & Gina-Apke Moses (Blackrock AC & Birchfield Harriers) 200m lead the Irish team in the sprint events. Both have run sub-12 secs for 100m several times this season already, and should feature strongly. For the 4 x 100m they will be joined by two other girls who have run sub-12 seconds on more than one occasion this season, Molly Scott (St. L.O’Toole) and Lauren Ryan (Dooneen). Molly will also contest the 100m hurdles. Niamh Malone (Monaghan Phoenix) following some impressive runs this season, will compete in the longer 400m hurdles event, whilst Jamie Mitchell (Emerald AC) runs in the 400m.

Middle Distance

Kevin Mc Grath (Bohermeen A.C.) 1500m, Laura Ward (St.Laurence O'Toole)1500m,  and Aaron Mc. Glynn (Finn Valley) 800m, will be competing in the European Youth Olympic Festival for Ireland. The young athletes have produced impressive times throughout the year and will look to continue their good form. McGrath has run 3.50.33 for 1500m and Aaron McGlynn 1.53.24 for 800m, in an event where no more than 5 athletes ran inside the guideline standard of 1.56.00.

Field Athletes 

Ryan Carthy-Walsh (Adamstown A.C.) and Sommer Lecky (Finn Valley A.C) both contest the High Jump, Ryan having just last weekend improved his PB to 2.05m. Daniel Ryan (Moycarkey Collcroo) and Arlene Crossan (Finn Valle) both contest the long jump. Orlaith O’Brien (Ferrybank A.C) goes in the Javelin whilst Lauren O’Keeffe (Donore Harriers) and Brendan O’Donnell (Lifford AC) compete in the hammer.