Katie O’ Brien Spearheads Galway
Event Which Aims to Help Sportspeople with a Disability to Discover their
Paralympic Potential
Paralympics Ireland is excited to
bring the Permanent TSB NextGen athlete recruitment campaign to the Kingfisher
sports centre at the University of Galway on May 14th for the first in four
regional events that aim to discover the next generation of Irish Paralympians.
Permanent TSB NextGen is a one-day
regional opportunity for young athletes interested in para sport to discover
their Paralympic potential through a range of physical challenges and exploring
different Paralympic sports.
Potential athletes need to register
before attending and can do this by going to the Paralympics Ireland website at
www.paralympics.ie.
Permanent TSB NextGen will bring
together sports people with a disability with the aim of providing them with an
opportunity to uncover their abilities in sports in which they may not yet have
competed. Connacht has a proud history of producing world class para-athletes
including para cyclists Martin Gordon, Richael Timothy and Ronan Grimes and
Galway based para-canoeist Pat O’Leary.
Galway athlete and multiple world
champion para rower, Katie O’ Brien is particularly excited about the prospect
of new athletes finding their way to sport as she did in 2012. From a young age
O’ Brien has had her sights set on Paralympic glory, long before she ever sat
in a boat.
Born with spina bifida, her life has
been interrupted by several surgeries but never interfered with her love of
sport. Growing up horse riding, playing camogie and Gaelic football, para sport
was never something that was on her radar, simply because she didn’t know about
it.
This all changed in 2012 when her
eyes were opened to a whole new world of sport. Recounting watching the 2012
London Paralympics she said “Having watched the Olympics and then going on to
watch the Paralympics just completely opened up this whole new world for me of
para sport. At the time, horse riding would have been my sport so I e-mailed
Paralympics Ireland while watching the Paralympics with my dad, telling them
that I was into horse riding, I’d love to get involved, how do I do it and
what’s out there”.
As chance would have it Paralympics
Ireland were running a campaign similar to NextGen at the time. 16-year-old
Katie attended with the intention of competing at para horse riding but that
all changed on the day.
“We had a look around the different
stalls and I ended up giving the rowing a go. After pulling a few strokes on
the machine one of the coaches obviously saw some potential and I was invited
into a rowing training camp a month later and that’s where my rowing journey
began.”
Since those serendipitous few minutes
on the rowing machine she has gone from strength to strength winning bronze in
the PR2 women's single sculls at the World Rowing Championships in 2019. She
followed this up by winning gold in the same event at the World Rowing
Championships in 2022.
Paralympic glory is still on her
radar. She is currently training with Stephen McGowan and hoping that their
double scull partnership will gain them a ticket to Paris 2024.
Speaking about the importance of
programmes like Permanent TSB NextGen O’ Brien said:
“It’s something that I feel
passionately about because that day totally changed the trajectory of my life.
I’m a full time athlete now, I do nothing other than rowing and only for I went
along to the similar Paralympics Ireland event in 2012 I wouldn’t even know
what rowing was.
It’s exciting to have a program like
this in place to bring through the next generation of Irish para-athletes.”
Speaking to the Permanent TSB NextGen
athlete recruitment campaign, Cora Lennon, Permanent TSB Regional Head of
Growth & Performance for North & West, said: “As proud title sponsor of
Team Ireland, we are delighted to be teaming up with our Partners in Paralympics
Ireland to deliver Permanent TSB NextGen.
Through our own commitment to
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, we continually seek to create a more inclusive
Permanent TSB for our colleagues and our customers. We are honoured to be
working alongside Paralympics Ireland to support in creating more inclusive
communities throughout Connacht and beyond through access to and participation
in para sport, in the hopes of uncovering new Irish Paralympic heroes who will
inspire the next generation.”
Permanent TSB is title sponsor of the
Irish Olympic Team and Irish Paralympic Team for the 2024 Olympic and
Paralympic Games in Paris. They are the first title sponsor to partner with
both teams during an Olympic and Paralympic cycle, as well as being Paralympic
Ireland’s first-ever title sponsor.
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