Frances Long with members of the Ormond Special Olympics Club.

Surprise visitor for Ormond Special Olympics Club!

The coaches and athletes of Ormond Special Olympics Club were surprised and delighted to have a very important visitor at the end of a recent club training session.

Frances Long from Loughmore completed the Dublin City Marathon in October 2016 and very kindly donated the sponsorship money she raised to the club. She presented the club with a cheque for €1,470.76.

 

Frances had been doing very well with her training for the marathon but then suffered a major setback following a fall in August. Thanks to her own determination and help from her physio, Tom Manton, as well as extra encouragement from Brian Carroll and Deirdre Kearney, she was able to make it over the finish line. She said the whole experience was an amazing day, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

 

Ormond Special Olympics Club appreciates so much the work and effort that not only Frances but her friends and family put in to collecting such an amazing amount of money, and are hugely grateful for such a generous donation. Athlete Sarah Hughes thanked Frances and accepted the cheque on behalf of all the athletes and members of the club.

 

Ormond Special Olympics Club have been back to their usual Wednesday evening athletics training sessions since January. Their indoor training in Nenagh College continues until the end of March, and the club will then be back to the athletics track in Templemore on Saturday mornings from the start of April.

 

It will be another busy year for all the Ormond club athletes with an inter club competition against Shannon Flyers SO Club in Ennis in April, followed in June by the Munster Advancement Athletics Competition in Cork for the 13 club athletes who have qualified to advance from last year's events.

 

We are now in year 2 of the 4 year cycle, and the 13 qualifying athletes will be hoping to be selected to the Munster Team for the Ireland Games, which will be held in Dublin in 2018. They will be competing ultimately for places on the Ireland team for the Special Olympics World Games in the United Arab Emirates in March 2019. So a lot of hard training and competition in the meantime!