Three Galway athletes have embarked on what they hope will culminate in Olympic glory when the XXIX Games open in Beijing next week.

Irish athletes, back, from left, Olive Loughnane, 20km walk, Derval O'Rourke, 100m hurdles, Joanne Cuddihy, 400m and Fionnuala Britton, 3000m steeplechase, with front, Paul Hession, left, 200m and David Gillick, 400m. Ireland athletics squad training camp, Monte Gordo, Faro, Portugal. Picture credit; Brendan Moran / SPORTSFILE

Athenry sprinter Paul Hession, walker Olive Loughnane from Loughrea and rower Cormac Folan from Barna will be the representatives participating from Galway.

NUIG student Alan Martin will travel as cover for the heavyweight fours rowing crew after being extremely unfortunate to be excluded having been part of the boat that made the qualification time. There is further Galway interest in Beijing with Mike Heskin from Taylor's Hill the Irish rowing team manager.

Folan, a former pupil at Colaiste Iognaid, is in a fours crew that could progress if given a favourable draw but rowing form has always been dfifficult to predict at the Games.

Olive Loughnane, who lives in Cork, is no stranger to this level of competition and will become one of the few Irish athletes to compete at three Olympic Games.

She will participate in the 20km walk having also featured at the Athens and Sydney Games. The form of Athenry sprinter Paul Hession is one of the biggest talking points as the Irish head to Beijing and there is genuine hope that he can be among the medals in the 200m.

Remarkably, Ireland has only ever managed three medals on the track with Ronnie Delany's gold in the 1500m in Melbourne in 1956 remaining the only first-place finish.

Since then there have been only silver medals from John Treacy — in the 1984 Los Angeles marathon — and Sonia O'Sullivan over 5,000m eight years ago in Sydney.

Hession, the fastest runner in Ireland, has spent most of his preparations for these games in Scotland and his form in London at the weekend when he took third in grand prix meeting in Crystal Palace suggests he is a runner hitting his prime at the right time.

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