'Inspiring athletes' chosen to carry Olympic flame

ADVENTURE ATHLETE Mark Pollock, who is blind and who lost the use of his legs in a fall in 2010, and eight-time All-Ireland winning Kilkenny hurler Henry Shefflin, will be among the Irish athletes to carry the Olympic flame in Dublin in June.

Pollock (36), a Trinity College Dublin graduate from Belfast, will take part with three Trinity students chosen to participate in the torch-carrying relay when it comes to Dublin on June 6th.

Along with students Mark Kenneally, Natalya Coyle and Áine Ní Choisdealbha, he will be among 8,000 “inspiring athletes” to carry the flame in relay on its journey through Ireland and Britain.

Shefflin (33) will scale new heights at Croke Park when he takes to the roof of the Hogan Stand to carry the torch. The Ballyhale man has been chosen by the GAA to represent the organisation in carrying the Olympic torch at Croke Park.

A walkway is being constructed at the top of the Hogan Stand for the purposes of “rooftop walking tours” that the GAA is hoping to offer as part of the Croke Park experience.

Some 35m (115ft) above ground, Shefflin will be among the first to experience the view from on high.

The Olympic Council gave the GAA just one nomination to bear the flame when it makes its stop-off in Dublin on June 6th.

The flame will be lit on May 10th from the sun’s rays at the Temple of Hera in Olympia, Greece. After a short relay around Greece, it will be handed over to representatives from the London games at a ceremony in the Panathenaiko stadium in Athens on May 17th.

It will be delivered to Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose in Cornwall on May 18th and on May 19th, at Land’s End, it will begin its 70-day relay around Britain, Northern Ireland and Dublin.

It ends its journey on July 27th, as the last torchbearer lights the cauldron at the opening ceremony in Olympic Park – the official start of the games. It is extinguished on the final day of the games, at the closing ceremony.

At the age of 22, Pollock lost his sight but, despite this, has run competitively in some of the most inhospitable environments in the world – the North Pole, through the desert lowlands of the Syrian African Rift Valley to the Dead Sea, and at high altitude in the Everest Marathon.

He raced to the South Pole over 43 days, completed six marathons in one week and was awarded two Commonwealth Games medals for rowing. In July 2010 he had a life- threatening fall from a second- storey window, paralysing him from the waist down.

“It’s exciting the Olympics are going to be in this part of the world – so close in England, and then that it’s in some way going to be in Ireland too,” he said.

“The Olympics are important – not just that they show the elite of sport at their very best, but also the trickle-down effect is really important. The hope is it will inspire people to grab a pair of runners and get involved.”

Pollock has been given scant details so far about his time carrying the flame.

“I got word just before the bank holiday. All I have been told is it’s the 6th of June.

“I don’t know the route yet, or the time.”