This week’s update includes a number of activities across our Olympic community – with international competitions taking place in Taekwondo, Golf and Cycling, all detailed below. Also, this week’s interview is with Judoka Megan Fletcher, who is currently sitting inside Olympic qualification in 14th place – she talks about training in her parent’s garden centre during lockdown and why she’s pleased to be back competing, as well as a change in the Judo calendar for 2021.
The Olympic qualification status of the athletes can be found AT THIS LINK which will be regularly updated. While many athletes are currently training from home, with little competition, see below a summary of sports which will see Irish Olympic hopefuls in action this coming weekend. This weekly update is provided in collaboration with the various National Governing Bodies, and the press officer contact details for each sport is provided below.
Olympic Federation of Ireland Updates
There was a significant moment last week at the General Assembly of the EOC, which saw the Olympic Federation of Ireland table a motion for a minimum 30% gender balance on the Executive Committee of the EOC. This motion was passed by a majority of 88%.
Next week will see the OFI EGM take place on the 8 December, where voting will take place for positions on the Executive Board – nine candidates are in the running for seven places. Read more here.
Beijing 2022
The accreditation process for the Winter Olympics in Beijing 2022 is currently open – the Games take place from the 4-20 February 2022, and if anyone is interested in applying for a press accreditation, please contact me.
Boxing
This week the IOC Boxing Task Force announced that the resumption of the European Boxing Road to Tokyo event has been officially scheduled to return to London on the 22-26 April 2021. The event serves as the continuation (following the suspension of the event after its third day of competition on 16 March) of the Olympic Boxing qualifier for the European nations and will allocate the remaining 61 Olympic quota spots reserved for the continent in the Olympic Games.
Cycling
Chris McGlinchey will represent Ireland at the inaugural 2020 UCI Cycling Esports World Championships which take place from the 8-9 December. Competition takes place over Zwift – more information can be found HERE. And follow the Cycling Ireland social media channels for updates.
Equestrian
Last week saw more success for Horse Sport Ireland, with the Show Jumping team achieving more podium success at the Nations Cup thanks to a third place finish for the Irish in a 17 team strong field – FULL REPORT HERE
Golf
Stephanie Meadow and Leona Maguire are back in action again this week at the Volunteers of America Classic – one of the last events for them pre-Christmas. Full details of the event can be found HERE with Irish specific updates on the ILGU twitter feed.
Judo
Competition has already begun in Judo with Olympic ranking events resuming. In an ordinary Olympic year, this ranking closes in April, but following the postponement of the Games and a rescheduling of events, the Olympic qualification calendar has been restructured. Next year qualification ranking events will run up until June 2021, with three major competitions taking place in that time – the first being the World Master’s in January. This week Megan Fletcher heads to a training camp in Austria, where she will train with some of the top Judokas in her event – the -70kg category. She SPOKE TO US about how she has dealt with the rollercoaster of a year 2020 has been, and how she looks forward to 2021. Transcript is available on request.
Currently Megan and her brother sit inside qualification for Tokyo, with Nathon Burns marginally outside qualification.
Taekwondo
Jack Woolley has already qualified a spot for Ireland in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, and he returns to competition next week, with the European Championships Olympic Weight Categories, which takes place in Bosnia on the 10th December. Last week we chatted to Jack about his journey to Olympic qualification and how he has been getting on during lockdown. Again, transcript available on request.
Volleyball
As part of Volleyball Ireland’s Inspiring Players Series, they have lined up all time great and triple Olympic Gold Medallist Kerri Walsh Jennings as a guest speaker next Monday 7th December. For more details go HERE and follow Volleyball Ireland HERE.
