GAA in talks with Athletics Ireland about sharing facilities

At a recent press release, GAA president Liam O'Neill said that the association were in talks with Athletics Ireland with a view to providing facilites in exchange for expertise in some areas. In an interview, he said....."We’re just saying that if we have grounds and the Government would like to put a track regionally and strategically, we’re saying we’re open to that. During the day time when school is on our facilities aren’t used to their max so there would be a possible chance of schools using it for athletics. Athletics Ireland and the sport have expertise in fitness, diet, nutrition and all that sort of stuff that we need too so we could very usefully form a link which would be of no great cost to either organisation but of huge benefit. They obviously have to go off and see the feasibility of it and we have to look at it too. It’s just an idea we said we’d put out. If in 20/30 years’ time we had an Olympic medal won by somebody who wouldn’t have been introduced to the sport had we not made the offer, wouldn’t that be a fantastic achievement?”

In the last year, the Cork Hurling team has used the expertise and experience of the Irish 800m record holder David Matthews to help them reach the All Ireland final. Considering that many road races already use GAA facilities and a lot of former GAA player take up running then this has to be a welcome development.