BADMINTON: After winning national titles at Baldoyle last weekend, Chloe Magee and Scott Evans will lead the Irish badminton team at next week’s Uber and Thomas Cups qualifiers in Amsterdam – the most prestigious team competition in badminton.
In their group matches, the women will play Slovenia, Slovakia and No 4 seeds Russia.
“We’re be hoping for a second place in our group,” says Chloe Magee. “We could beat both Slovenia and Slovakia.”
The men have No 2 seeds Germany and Israel to contend with.
For individual players, rankings points towards London 2012 are on offer for a good display. “They take the average of your last ten tournaments for team competitions, so you can pick up good points,” says Scott Evans who, like Magee, is in line to make the final cut for London 2012 when the qualification period ends on April 30.
Evans, based in Denmark for the past six years, has recently changed coach. “I’ve gone back to International Badminton Academy where I started. It mean I can practise with a higher standard of player – three are in the world top 50.In January, I concentrated on getting fitter and stronger so now I’m working on my mental game,” says the young Dubliner.
Although he has no plans to return home any time soon, Evans is impressed by the current Irish set-up. “There’s a lot of young talent here and Dan Magee, although he’s young, is doing well as national coach and is willing to learn. I have a lot more experience and am happy to help in any away I can.”
TABLE TENNIS: John Murphy and Amanda Mogey will lead the Irish teams at the LEIBHERR World Team Table Tennis Championships in Dortmund, Germany starting on March 25.
Joining Murphy on the men’s team are Paul McCreery, Ashley Robinson and Gavin Maguire. Young stars Ashley Givan and Edel O’Reilly will play with Mogey on the women’s team.
For Dubliner Murphy this will be a ninth world team championships. The Irish men’s hope to hold on to their place in Division 3
Although many times Irish champion Mogey has played at world individual championships, this will be her first appearance at the world team event.
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| Ray Kane takes aim |
TARGET SHOOTING: After their great performances at Intershoot 2012 in Holland, four Irish target shooters head for the European Championships in Finland hoping to snatch at least one place at the London Olympics.
Ray Kane proved the star of the team at Intershoot when he improved his own Irish air rifle record to 590 out of a possible 600. Paul O’Boyle and Mark Dennehy both
put in Olympic minimum qualifying scores in men’s air rifle, as did new Irish international Aisling Miller in women’s air rifle and Peter Friend in men’s pistol.
On her international debut, pistol shooter Caroline O’Brien set a new Irish record. Ireland also narrowly missed out on team silver in the men’s air rifle competition.
At the European Championship, five Olympic places are on offer in each discipline. Making up the Irish team are Ray Kane, Paul O’Boyle, Aisling Miller and
Peter Friend.
PARA CYCLING: Colin Lynch, the current road time trial world champion, is leading at Irish squad of 11 at the Paracycling Track World Championships already underway in Los Angeles.
Lynch competes in the C2 1km time trial, the 3km individual pursuit and the team sprint competition. Catherine Walsh and Francine Meehan, who have won bronze at this level in the past, compete in the women’s tandem 1km time trial and 3km individual pursuit.
Also competing in individual competitions are Cathal Miller and Enda Smyth. Going in the women’s tandem are Katie-George Dunlevy and pilot Sandra Fitzgerald, while competing in men’s tandem are James Brown and pilot Damien Shaw and Andrew Fitzgerald and pilot Con Collis. At stake for all the cyclists are places on the Irish team at the London 2012 Paralympics.
SNOOKER: Vincent Muldoon of Maynooth is aiming to make it a hat trick of victories at this weekend’s fifth Senior Ranking tournament of the season in Celbridge Snooker Club. That would be enough to see him overtake Rodney Goggins of 147 Wexford on top of the rankings. As well as Goggins, Muldoon takes on a formidable squad of players from host club Celbridge including Joe Delaney, John Sutton, TJ Dowling and Alen Matic.
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