Strong performances in the evening session of Day One at the Youth Olympic Games see McSharry and Coyne progress through to women’s 50m breaststroke final and Nyugyen winning in men’s doubles.
Badminton:
Dublin’s Nhat Nguyen paired with Great Britain’s Christopher Grimley to win in the men’s doubles, and with Hungary’s Vivien Sandorhazi in the mixed doubles. The badminton relays are a new concept for the Youth Olympic Games, with athletes competing in a number of different categories. The format is shorter than normal with the players competing to 11 points.
Performance Director John Quinn commented; “We have an interesting couple of days because Nhat plays all his individual events in the morning and then there’s a team event being planned for the evening so he has quite long days. [In the new team event] There is eight teams of eight players, four boys, four girls, they play an experimental scoring system and play with random partners that they have never played with before so it should be interesting.”
Swimming:
Both Niamh Coyne and Mona McSharry will compete in the finals of the women’s 50m breaststroke, following strong performances in last night’s semi-finals. Coyne moves into the final as fourth fastest qualifier, with a time of 31.80, McSharry is sixth fastest with 32.01.
This competition falls during what would normally be the off-season for the swimmers, so there is an element of the unknown for all within the field. After the race an unfazed Coyne said; “It was a good swim – I didn’t really know how I was going to do coming into this competition. Felt good, felt strong, happy with it.”
Day two (Monday) of the Youth Olympic Games will see Emma Slevin in action in the women’s vault, while Nhat Nguyen will take to the court once again in the group play stage of the Men’s singles. Georgia Drummey will play the first round of the women’s singles with the women’s 50m breaststroke final also taking place with Mona McSharry and Niamh Coyne both taking part.
Team Ireland in Buenos Aires comprises of a squad of 16 athletes from 9 sports. The team of 5 male athletes and 11 female athletes includes Nhat Nguyen (Badminton) and Mona McSharry (Swimming), recipients of Olympic Solidarity Scholarships which were awarded to assist with qualification and preparations for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
This is the third edition of the Youth Olympic Games which are hosted every four years. The Games, running from October 6 to October 18 will feature more than 4,000 talented junior athletes aged 15 to 18 from 200 countries in over 32 sports.
