Two Tipperary students are competing at the Special Olympics National Games this week.
Declan Foley and Cian Johnson Clarke are pupils in Scoil Aonghusa in Cashel and make the trip to Berlin on Friday.
The pair are 2 of 500 international competitors competing in the games alongside 4500 German participants.
Declan and Cian will be competing in equestrian events and their coach at Scoil Aonghusa is Ger Ryan Maher.
The event is the first of its kind post Covid and the two Cashel students are 2 of 500 international competitors competing in the games alongside 4500 German participants.
Declan and Cian will be competing in equestrian events and Cian is particularly looking forward to going to Berlin:
“I’m going to be so proud of myself because I’ve never been to Berlin before in my life. I hope that I will do my best and try train my best. I always wanted to go to Berlin.”
Ger Ryan Maher, an equestrian coach at the Cashel school, says it’s a popular activity in Scoil Aonghusa:
“We have a good solid equestrian programme in Scoil Aonghusa so even though the two boys are lucky enough to be selected to go to Berlin, we have a lot of students in the school who ride every week.
“I suppose that’s thanks to the use of the facilities of Tomás Ryan of the Tipperary equestrian centre in Thurles.
“They are really obliging and very good to us. We are lucky enough to have three coaches over the full equestrian programme. It’s a big school, you have just around 130 pupils and quite a number of them ride weekly so you need a lot of coaches.”
