Fiona Doyle represented Ireland in the women’s 100 metres and 200 metres breaststroke at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games.

She was the first Irish athlete to qualify for those Games when she secured the A standard at the World University Games in Gwangju in July 2015 – winning bronze in the 100 metres breaststroke and silver in the 50 metres.

Doyle grew up in Raheen, Limerick, and comes from a swimming family: her paternal grandfather Michael Doyle founded St Paul’s Swimming Club in Limerick in 1974, where Fiona and her twin sister Eimear first learned to swim before progressing to Limerick Swimming Club. Eimear showed equal talent but was forced to retire at 16 due to a back injury, becoming one of Fiona’s most devoted supporters. Doyle attended Crescent College Comprehensive, where she trained up to 28 hours a week from the age of 13, and narrowly missed qualification for the London 2012 Games by half a second.

She moved to the University of Calgary in 2010 on a sports scholarship, studying kinesiology and later completing postgraduate work, training under head coach Mike Blondal. She was a six-time Irish record holder and won the Swim Ireland High Performance Athlete of the Year award in both 2013 and 2014.

She had set her sights on Olympic swimming at the age of 12 after watching the 2004 Athens Games.