THE FIRST SEVEN Irish athletes officially selected to compete at the Tokyo Olympics have been announced this morning, with Team Ireland revealing five marathon runners and two race walkers who will compete across four days in Sapporo from 5-8 August.
In the women’s marathon, Fionnuala McCormack will take part in her fourth Olympic Games. Aoife Cooke will also compete in the event, while Paul Pollock, Kevin Seaward and Stephen Scullion will compete in the men’s marathon.
Brendan Boyce, the first Irish athlete across all sports to achieve an Olympic qualification time, will compete in the men’s 50km race walk, and will be joined by Alex Wright.
Boyce is heading into his third Olympics, while Wright competed at the 2016 Rio Games.
The endurance events were originally set to take place in Tokyo, but were moved to the more northern city of Sapporo as temperatures are expected to be more forgiving.
OFFICIAL TEAM ANNOUNCEMENT
— Team Ireland (@TeamIreland) June 15, 2021
Seven #TeamIreland athletes have been officially announced today. They will compete in the Marathon and 50km Race Walk in Sapporo #Tokyo2020 #NothingInOurWay ☘️🇮🇪 🇯🇵
Read more 👇https://t.co/IGJA2V7m4f pic.twitter.com/N0Z17bDYeI
Paul McNamara, Athletics Ireland Performance Director said, “This has been a unique, protracted and challenging qualifying campaign for these athletes with postponement, change of venue, limited qualifying opportunities, and the vagaries of the new qualification system, but these athletes have risen to the many challenges and now are primed to put in their very best performance on the greatest of stages.”
A second Team Ireland Tokyo announcement will take place in early July, where the travelling track and field athletes will be named, as well as athletes in the 20km race walk.
Team Ireland now has 10 athletes confirmed for the Games across four sports. Currently, 79 athletes have achieved qualification spots, with more waiting on final ranking confirmation.
Team Ireland Tokyo athletics announcement:
Marathon (men)
Paul Pollock (Rio Olympian)
Stephen Scullion
Kevin Seaward (Rio Olympian)
Marathon (women)
Aoife Cooke
Fionnuala McCormack (Beijing, London, Rio Olympian)
50km race walk (men)
Brendan Boyce (London, Rio Olympian)
Alex Wright (Rio Olympian)
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