Northern Ireland Name Commonwealths Team (14th November, 2005)

Northern Ireland will send one of their smallest ever teams to the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia next March. Eleven sports will be represented, made up of 56 competitors and 21 officials.

The squad includes:

Men’s Artistic Gymnastics:
Matthew Cosgrave

Women’s Artistic Gymnastics:
Katie Slader
Rachel Forde
Kathryn Ward

Rhythmic Gymnastics:
Kara Hare

Coaches:
Tony Byrne (Artistic Gymnastics)
Valerie Dugan (Rhythmic Gymnastics)

Katie Slader, Rachel Forde and Matthew Cosgrave are currently in Australia preparing to compete at the World Championships in Melbourne. The Irish team arrived on Sunday and have been acclimatising and are now in full training in preparation for the qualification rounds next week.

The experience they gain at these World Championships will prove vital come the Commonwealth Games in March which will be held in the same venue, the Rod Laver Arena. 2006 could prove to be the year Northern Ireland reap the much deserved rewards in the Commonwealth Games.

With great talent in depth, the team will be hoping to medal at the Games. Especially Katie Slader, the ever elegant gymnast, who will be bringing her wealth of experience, having competed in the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games and the Europeans. A medal is a sure possibility and it would be Northern Ireland’s first medal in Commonwealth Games history.

In 2002, a bitterly disappointed Holly Murdock was unable to compete at the Commonwealths due to injury. The highest placed all around British gymnast in World Championships history, which she achieved in 2001 in Ghent, Holly is now in her 4th year at UCLA on a scholarship and last year she retired from collegiate gymnastics.

For rhythmic gymnast, Kara Hare, being selected for the Commonwealth Games is something of a family affair as her sister Kristina competed in the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur. Over the summer, Kara received training by Russian coach Marina Kouchinskaya and choreographer Tatiana Bolomania. This year has already been successful for Kara, having finished fourth at the Mol International in Belgium and she picked up a bronze medal at the Scottish Open and she also competed in the Slovenian and Norwegian Opens in recent months.

Interestingly Zoe Brown, who is one of Tony Byrne’s protégés of the late 90’s in Northern Ireland gymnastics is now a high flier in the ranks of pole vaulting. Brown is undoubtedly super talented in sport. She competed for the Northern Ireland gymnastics team in the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur. Her competitive days in gymnastics were coming to a close when Tony suggested she try pole vaulting. Four years later she was selected for the NI team to compete at the Manchester Commonwealths. She has now been selected to compete in the Melbourne Games, which will be her third Commonwealth Games in two sports and she is also a strong bet to make the finals!

The team will leave on March 3rd with the Games taking place from March 15th to 26th.