Paralympics Ireland are hopeful of sending a team of between 45 and 50 athletes to Rio 2016 ©Paralympics Ireland

Paralympics Ireland have released a specially commissioned video to celebrate the one year to go milestone until Rio 2016. 

The video features several of Irish hopeful who will be bidding to compete at next year’s Paralympics, which are expected to see 4,350 athletes from over 160 countries bid for medals in 22 sports, and can be viewed here

“Lots of our athletes are in the qualification phase and the team is already qualified for football and we have achieved a slot for shooting,” said David Malone, performance director at Paralympics Ireland.

“In terms of the athletics and swimming it is all up for grabs at the moment.

“In terms of the teams and the athletes they are all very much in preparation.”

Ireland have also secured a spots for two bikes in cycling event with a  year left to go, with Eoghan Clifford having earned time trial gold at the International Cycling Union (UCI) Paracycling Road World Championships in August.

He had earlier earned gold and bronze at the Track World Championships in March, where Katie-George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal earned women’s tandem bronze.


Ellen Keane secured a bronze medal for Ireland at the IPC Swimming World Championships
Ellen Keane secured a bronze medal for Ireland at the IPC Swimming World Championships ©Getty Images

Ireland also enjoyed success the IPC Swimming World Championships in Glasgow in August where Ellen Keane and Darragh McDonald have won bronze medals in the 200 metres individual medley S9 and 400m freestyle S6 events respectively.

Paralympics Ireland are hopeful their athletes will secure more berths in the remaining months of 2015 with the Para-dressage European Championships in France and the IPC Athletics World Championships in Doha providing qualification opportunities.

They are aiming to send a team of between 45 to 50 athletes to the Games and in preparation several hopefuls, an expert sports science and medicine team, the coaching and management staff and Chef de Mission Denis Toomey have just returned from a twelve day familiarisation camp in Uberlandia, north west of Rio.

The idea of the camp has been to allow the athletes to road test facilities, accommodation and transport at the location, which will act as their pre-Games holding camp next year.



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