Gillick happy with progress so far Ireland’s Olympic athletes have been in warm weather training this week in Monte Gordo, Portugal at an Athletics Ireland camp as part of their preparations for this summer’s Olympics in Beijing. All of Ireland’s top athletes have been working out at the camp including Derval O’Rourke, Paul Hession and Joanne Cuddihy as they hope to fine tune their performances looking into a long summer of competition. European Indoor Champion, David Gillick, was also out in Portugal and has been very happy with how it is going. “I have been out here since Saturday and it has been great. There is a good buzz around and it’s very relaxed around the place as it’s not often we get a chance to go away as a group and not have the pressure of competition”. While the camp has been a good getaway for Gillick he is focused on China. “Everything is going well for Beijing so far. I was in LA with my Loughborough training group for 5 weeks and I will be going back to the UK after this to keep up the preparations. After that I should hopefully get back into competition around early June and then it’s the final run into the Olympics,” Gillick said. Athletics Ireland’s Olympic Team Manager, Patsy McGonagle, has been impressed with the standard of the camp. “There is a great atmosphere at the training camp and the athletes have come here for a specific training period to get them ready for what will be a long tough season,” McGonagle said. “The facilities and medical back-up we have here is excellent and everyone is in a real positive mood, which is great to see.” While this has been a build up to Beijing for some of the athletes, there are others in the group who still have an eye on qualification. McGonagle believes this camp will have been a huge help to them. “The likes of Liam Reale and David Campbell are two athletes who should have a good chance of making the A standard for China in what is a tough qualifying time. They are two hugely dedicated athletes and this couple of weeks will be of great benefit to them both,” McGonagle said.
