Athletics Ireland is delighted to announce the athletes and coaches involved in the National Relay Programme for 2025. The full list of athletes and coaches can be accessed here. The squads were selected using the National Relay Programme Selection Criteria, which can be accessed here.
2024 was the most successful year on record from a relay perspective and saw Irish teams achieve a gold and a silver medal at the European Championships, a bronze medal at the World Relay Championships, and a fourth-place finish at the Olympic Games. Furthermore, our teams reached the finals at World Indoor Championships, World Relays and World U20 Championships, and we secured four further top 16 finishes at the Olympic Games, European Championships (2 teams) and the World U20 Championships. We hope to build on and expand this success through 2025 and onwards towards the Los Angeles Olympic Games.
The coaching team for 2025 sees some new appointments. Gary Ryan will lead the Senior Women’s 4x100m Squad and will be assisted by Niamh Whelan. Gary brings a wealth of experience to this team, both as an athlete and as a coach. Gary is an 11-time National Champion and a two-time Olympian. He won a World Indoor Championship Relay Bronze Medal in 2004. More recently, he has coached a number of our top relay and sprint athletes, including Sharlene Mawdsley. Niamh is a 5-time National Champion. She has represented Ireland at nine Major Championships. She ran the second leg of the first ever Irish team to run under 44 seconds for the 4x100m, a National Record which stood for four years. She is currently working as a Sports Biomechanics Lecturer at TUS.
Gerard O’Donnell is also joining the National Relay Programme as a coach of the Senior and U23 4x400m Squads. Gerard has won 9 National Championships as an athlete and has coached many of our current High-Performance athletes, through his involvement in the Dublin Sprint group and Dublin Track Club. He coaches three of the relay athletes who represented Ireland at last year’s Olympic Games and World Relay Championships (Sophie Becker, Jack Raftery, Cillin Greene), and was involved in the preparation of the relay teams for these Championships.
Kevin Cogley will move up an age group in 2025 to work with the U23 Women’s 4x100m Squad after a very successful stint with the U20 Men. A former World Championship athlete at 4x100m, Kevin guided three successive Men’s U20 teams to the European U20 Championships (2019, 2021 and 2023) including reaching the final in 2023, and was the coach of the team that set the current National U20 Record.
Karen Kirk will replace Kevin as the coach of the U20 Men’s Squad. Karen brings a huge amount of experience and success to this role, having previously coached the U20, U23 and Senior Women’s teams to multiple major championships at World and European level. Most notably, Karen was the Coach of the Women’s U20 team who won a silver medal at the World U20 Championships in Tampere, Finland in 2018.
Continuing in their previous roles are Daniel Kilgallon (Senior and U23 Men’s 4x100m), Olive Murphy (U20 Women’s 4x100m), Dermot McGranaghan (U20 4x400m) and David McCarthy (Senior and U23 4x400m).
Daniel has been working with the Senior and U23 Squads for over a decade and has had a very high level of success, coaching teams to World and European Championships at Senior level. Most recently, Daniel oversaw the performance of the Men’s 4x100m team at last Summer’s European Championships and has also been the lead coach at World Relay Championships and World Championships. He coached the Men’s U23 team at the last European Championships who set two National Records when finishing 5th. Daniel has also coached some of Ireland’s top sprinters, including Israel Olatunde and Rhasidat Adeleke.
Olive has been working successfully with the Women’s U20 4x100m teams for the last couple of seasons. A former National Record holder herself, Olive has also worked with the Irish U18 teams at European Championships over the last two years.
Dermot has successfully led the U20 4x400m Squads for the last four years, overseeing National Records for both the Men’s and Women’s teams. He has coached three teams to European Championship finals, including a 5th place finish for the Women’s team in 2021. In 2024, Dermot coached the Men’s and Mixed teams at the World U20 Championships. The Men’s team finished in 7th place, setting a new NR in the process.
The final appointment in the Relay Programme for 2025 sees David McCarthy expand his role. Having previously coordinated all of the 4x400m Squads, David now moves to the role of National Relay Coordinator and will have responsibility for both 4x100m and 4x400m Squads across the three age groups. David is a former international athlete and won a 4x400m Bronze Medal at the World Indoor Championships in 2004. He has worked with various 4x400m teams over the last 8 years, starting with the U20 Squads in 2017, and has coached the Senior Women’s team since 2021, overseeing a silver medal winning performance at the 2024 European Championships and a fourth-place finish at the Olympic Games.
All four athletes elevated themselves to a whole new level. It's not just any gold, it's precious, wonderful, relay gold for Ireland. The first ever in the history of Irish athletics at a major championships.