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Sporting Spotlight
Sporting Spotlight

Sporting Spotlight

Each week Breifne Earley talks to a different sports star from across the Irish sporting world. Including Olympians, Paralympians, World Champions, International athletes and the hottest sporting prospects for the future. Each week we put our guest to the Spotlight Sweat our own Sports Quiz to see which star knows the most about Irish Sport. Each guest also gets to demonstrate their musical taste by selecting the closing song of the show. Sporting Spotlight is broadcast weekly on Dublin City FM on 103.2 in the greater Dublin area, and online at www.dublincityfm.ie every Friday at 7:30pm (GMT - Irish Time)

Available Episodes 10

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This week's guest on the show is one of Ireland's top marathon runners. Clonliffe Harrier's Gary O'Hanlon chats to Breifne Earley about disliking athletics until he started to win races at fourteen. The car accident that nearly ended his running career at seventeen and his return to competitive action almost fifteen years later, egged on my his Amphibian King colleague Kevin English, before winning a bronze medal in the Irish Cross Country Championships in 2012. Winning four marathons (Connemara, Limerick, Kildare and Newry) in eight weeks back to back before a second place in the Cork marathon in June saw him explode into the public consciousness through his continued exposure in all the athletics media at that time of the season. He brought his good form into the end of the season and it rubbed off on the plenty of athletes he coached through the Dublin City Marathon. It was a personal disaster for Gary despite finishing 6th in the race, an incident the previous day with his phone being stolen resulted in a broken hand for Gary, who ran the race regardless. And finally the less said the better about his effort in the Sporting Spotlight, although with the amount of training required to be that competitive over the marathon distance we'll forgive him.

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This week to celebrate the Dublin Marathon, Breifne chats to Rob Costello, a veteran of 20 marathons, about how he got into running in his mid twenties. He talks about playing social football through college and deciding to join a group from work in a marathon in Barcelona, how a 100km race is 'only two and a half marathons' and suffering in 42 degree heat during a 100 mile race attempt in the Western States Endurance Run in the USA. He has completed twenty marathons across the globe including Dublin, Barcelona, Sydney, Gold Coast, Melbourne, San Francisco amongst other exotic locations He also chats about how his swimming has held back his Ironman ambitions although he hopes to rectify that in the future.

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This week Stephanie Roche is in the Sporting Spotlight talking about her sporting career with Peamount United, Dundalk City, Raheny United, Stella Maris, and learning her craft with Valeview Shankill, Cabinteely and Tony Pouchs Wicklow Academy. Starting from playing with the lads on her estate she developed into a Senior International and playing in the UEFA Women's Champions League & Bus Eireann Women's National League with Peamount Utd. She outlines the major influences on her career and talks to us about that goal which lit up the internet all week.

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This week Breifne Earley has Ireland's premier female adventure racer Avril Copeland in the spotlight. She talks about her initial sporting career as a senior international hockey player focused on reaching the Olympics, before pursuing a love of country music and finding herself rubbing shoulders with her favourite artist Garth Brooks living in Nashville, Tennessee. While there she found herself drawn to the new world of adventure racing and after attending a training camp knew it was where she wanted to be in a sporting sense. She has moved on to become one of Ireland's top athletes currently partaking in this growing sport and as an ambassador for the Killarney Adventure Race is urging everyone and anyone to consider getting involved in the multi-discipline sport.

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This week's guest is Dublin & Naomh Mearnog Ladies Gaelic Football netminder Cliodhna O'Connor. Having won an All Ireland and two all star awards with Dublin over a ten year career between the posts for the Jackies. She chats to Breifne Earley about getting her break at senior level after injuries and emigration gave her an opportunity and she's never looked back. Cliodhna mentions growing up through Naomh Mearnog with a great group of girls who all graced the blue jersey in either football or camogie at some level. She profiles disappointments with her club before the joy of finally bringing home the Brendan Martin Cup in 2011.

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This evening Breifne chat's to Irish Cricketer Kevin O'Brien who faces his turn in the Sporting Spotlight. He chats about growing up in a cricket crazy family and how he progressed from a kid playing with his brothers for his local club Railway Union to hitting the fastest one day world cup century in the victory over England in 2011. He talks about the tragedy surrounding the death of the Pakistan coach after their encounter in the 2007 World Cup as well as the progress of Irish Cricket since that debut World Cup.

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This evening's show features the top goal scorer in the entire Airtricity League this season, David O'Sullivan of Longford Town. We talks to Breifne Earley about playing schoolboy football in Wicklow and getting his first bite of the League of Ireland cherry with Bray Wanderers and Sporting Fingal only to fall foul to injuries. The rise, fall and re-rise of his career from Wicklow, Wayside Celtic and international honours at the World University Games and Gerry Smyth's Intermediate side and on to his first senior league appearances with Longford Town this season.

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This evening's show will feature London 2012 Olympics Walker Laura Reynolds. The Leitrim athlete who qualified for the Olympics and went on to secure a top twenty finish. She talks to Breifne about growing up in Leitrim, getting into athletics in primary school, community games before getting selected to represent Ireland at youth level. She discusses the process in selecting athletics over her other sports during her teen years including basketball and gaelic football. Laura discusses the professional setup of the athletics academy in Dublin City University which was one of the catalysts for her success at senior level. With one eye on the future she outlines her plans for the road to Rio in 2016.

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This evening's show will feature London 2012 Paralympic Swimming Champion Darragh McDonald. The Wexford teenager who burst on the scene at the Beijing Paralympic Games winning a silver medal before trading up for gold in the S6 400m Freestyle four years later. Darragh will be talking about his early success at just thirteen years of age in Beijing, the expectation which comes from such early promise, dealing with mixing his secondary education and full time training. We'll also be chatting about his future as he prepares to change clubs, moving to UCD for his education and what lies ahead on his 'Road to Rio'.

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This evening's show will feature Chloe Magee Ireland's top female badminton player who competed at both the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympic Games. She outlines how her parent's influence got her into the sport at a young age, and moving to Sweden to coach badminton after her leaving certificate was the catalyst in directing her towards the Beijing games. With her success in Beijing, where she became the first Irish woman to win a badminton match at the Olympic Games, she decided to refocus her efforts at continue full time towards London 2012. Chloe talks about the challenge of keeping her personal & family life out of her badminton, a tall order considering her coach is brother Daniel and her mixed doubles partner Sam is another brother. The new Badminton high performance centre has allowed her to train at home in a proper environment and really compete on the global stage. She also gives her thoughts on the comments made by RTE's Olympic coverage about the sport of Badminton last summer.