RTE NEWS Ireland’s Olympic athletes have been in warm-weather training this week in Monte Gordo, Portugal at an Athletics Ireland camp as part of their preparations for this summer’s Beijing Olympics. David Gillick, Derval O’Rourke, Paul Hession and Joanne Cuddihy are among those that have been fine-tuning their training regimes.
Gillick has been particularly pleased with the trip commenting: ‘I have been out here since Saturday and it has been great.
‘There is a good buzz around and it’s very relaxed around the place as it’s not often we get a chance to go away as a group and not have the pressure of competition.
‘Everything is going well for Beijing so far. I was in LA with my Loughborough training group for five weeks and I will be going back to the UK after this to keep up the preparations.
‘After that I should hopefully get back into competition around early June and then it’s the final run into the Olympics.’
Athletics Ireland’s Olympic team manager Patsy McGonagle has been impressed with the standard of the camp.
‘There is a great atmosphere at the training camp and the athletes have come here for a specific training period to get them ready for what will be a long tough season,’ McGonagle said.
‘The facilities and medical back-up we have here is excellent and everyone is in a real positive mood, which is great to see.’
