WITH just 50 days to go to the start of Rio 2016, the Olympic Council of Ireland today announced the Swim Ireland athletes that will represent Ireland at the Games.
Fiona Doyle, Shane Ryan and Nicholas Quinn will represent Ireland in Swimming while Oliver Dingley will be Ireland’s sole competitor in Diving, all four are first time Olympians.
Fiona Doyle reached the FINA A Qualifying Standard for the Games when she won Bronze in the 100m Breaststroke at the World University Games in South Korea last July.
Shane Ryan qualified in the 100m Backstroke and was the first to do so in a 50 metre pool on Irish soil ever at the Dave McCullagh Meet in Bangor in March and Nicholas Quinn qualified in the 200m Breaststroke at the Eindhoven Swim Cup in April where he won Gold and set a new championship record.
Oliver Dingley will be Ireland’s first representative in Diving since Dubliner Eddie Heron competed at the London Olympics in 1948.
Dingley qualified for the Games after placing 11th in the preliminary round at the Diving World Cup in Rio de Janeiro in February of this year, it was his only opportunity to qualify for the Games.
Doyle, Ryan and Quinn are now back in their home training bases after a two week training camp in Barcelona and will travel to Uberlandia, the Ireland training base for the Games, on the July 25 for a two week camp ahead of the swimming start date of August 6.
Dingley is currently at a training camp in Spain and will compete at the Italian National Diving Championships next week and then the FINA (International Aquatics Federation) Diving Grand Prix in Bolzano, Italy from July 15-17, he will travel straight to the Olympic Village on August 3.
Commenting on today’s announcement Swim Ireland High Performance Director Peter Banks said “Ireland can be very proud of this group of athletes going to Rio.
They have worked extremely hard to achieve this goal and I know they all have high expectations on themselves going into the Games to represent Ireland to the highest possible level.”
