Irish Technical Officials Appointments

At the early part of the last century, Ireland had a great tradition of its Technical Officials being appointed by the IOC and IAAF to officiate at Olympic Games.

The illustrious list of Irish international Technical Officials appointed by the IAAF for Olympic Games includes the following historic names:

• 1908 - Dr Michael Bulger

• 1924 - Dr Robert Rowlette

• 1928 - Dr Robert Rowlette

• 1928 - Eamon Flemming

• 1932 - Percy Kirwan

• 1932 - Peter O’Connor

Subsequent political difficulties with the governance of the sport in Ireland ended this tradition and from 1932 to 2008 only one Irish Technical Official was appointed at Olympic level.

However, recent successful efforts by the Athletics Ireland Technical Committee to train, develop and qualify technical officials at national and ultimately international level has seen this trend reversed and in recent years an ever growing group of Irish officials have been selected by European Athletics and the IAAF to serve at the highest levels.

Following recent meetings of the European Athletics Council in Paris and the IAAF Council in Monaco a large contingent of Irish International Technical Officials were appointed to a number of major competitions over the coming two years.

IAAF

These appointments are led by Pierce O’Callaghan who passed the IAAF International Race Walking Judges (IRWJ) exams in London in October to be named a member of the IAAF panel for a third time for the period 2015-2018.

He was subsequently appointed as an International judge for the IAAF World Championships in Beijing in 2015 and the Rio Olympic Games in 2016.

At European Athletics level, Irelands other IAAF qualified ITO John Cronin was named the Chief International Technical Official (ITO) for the European U23 Championships in Tallinn, Estonia where Sligo’s Ray Flynn was appointed an International Race Walking Judge.

European Appointments

John was also appointed Technical Delegate for the European Athletics Indoor Permit Meeting in Tallinn in February.

Pierce O’Callaghan was appointed to be a member of the Jury of Appeal for the European Indoor Championships in Prague in March while Ronan O’Hart was also named on the Jury of Appeal for the European Team Championships Super League in Cheboksary, Russia in June.

Declan Curtin was named the Chairman of the Jury of Appeal for the European Cup Combined Events Super League in Aubagne, France in July while former Irish Sports Council Anti-Doping staff member Bee O’Callaghan was appointed the Doping Control Delegate at the European Cup Combined Events 1st & 2nd League in Inowroclaw, Poland.

Athletics Ireland takes great pride in the appointments of its hard working voluntary technical officials and is looking forward to seeing many new officials attending the next National Technical Official (NTO) course, which has been provisionally scheduled for September 2015.