The countdown to the 2022 Winter Olympic Games is in full swing, with the competition running in Beijing from the 4th-20th of February.
Team Ireland’s allocations are to be confirmed in the coming days, in what is to be the country’s 30-year celebration of partaking in the event.
Since that France 1992 outing, thirty-one athletes have represented Ireland across seven Winter Olympics, with this year’s team expected to be the biggest to date.
Two of those hopefuls are Elsa Desmond (Luge) and Maggie Rose Carrigan (snowboarding).
Meet the #TeamIreland snowboarder whose eyes are firmly set on #Beijing2022👀
Maggie Rose Carrigan has defied the odds to even compete in🏂after being diagnosed with scoliosis aged 10! Now she's chasing Olympic qualification in the Parallel Giant Slalom!https://t.co/i3vWSuwy5k pic.twitter.com/k6k0nalXGl— Team Ireland (@TeamIreland) December 14, 2021
Elsa Desmond
Did you know that Ireland is represented internationally in Luge?
Elsa Desmond not only competes in the sliding event on the international circuit, but she is responsible for the founding of the Luge Federation in Ireland, and she is currently competing in Sochi, in pursuit of coveted Olympic points, with the Beijing 2022 Olympics on her mind!
She has avoided serious injury so far but does she ever get scared?
“Of course! I’m human and you’re going downhill at 170kph in lycra. My way of rationalising it is there’s risks in getting in a car every day so you might as well do what you enjoy."
Read more about the recently qualified doctor who flies the Irish flag in Luge HERE.
Maggie Rose Carrigan
Meet the Team Ireland snowboarder whose sight is firmly set on Beijing 2022. Maggie Rose Carrigan has defied the odds to even compete in snowboarding after being diagnosed with scoliosis aged 10! Now she's chasing Olympic qualification in the Parallel Giant Slalom, and is currently competing on the World Cup circuit.
At eleven she had to have two 14-inch rods inserted into her back and was repeatedly advised to quit snowboarding and had to sit out all activity for an entire year but found another way to pursue her passion.
Flips and jumps were no longer possible but she could still ride if she switched to alpine snowboarding, the sport’s speed discipline which has no aerial element. And here we are!
Maggie Rose is named after her grandmother Margaret, and grandaunt Rose who were Shines who grew up in the townland of Drumlosh, on the banks of the Shannon on the Roscommon side of Athlone.
Margaret and several of her eight siblings emigrated to America where she met her second-generation husband at an ‘Irish dance’.
Read the full profile on Olympic hopeful Maggie Rose Carrigan HERE.
Tess Arbez and Claire Dooley are also Winter Olympics 2022 hopefuls, read about them here.
