National Indoor Arena Opens Its Doors

January 26th 2017 marked an important date for the sport of Gymnastics and indeed sport as a whole in Ireland with the official state opening of the National Indoor Arena (NIA) by An Taoiseach Enda Kenny. The state-of-the-art indoor training and events centre is situated at the heart of the Sport Ireland National Sports Campus in Dublin and includes the National Gymnastics Training Centre (NGTC), the new home for gymnastics in Ireland. The venue also included the National Indoor Athletics Training Centre and the National Indoor Training Centre. 

Speaking at the opening, CEO Ciaran Gallagher commented: 

'After years of work it was an emotional moment to see the NIA come to life. This €50 million world-class facility gives Gymnastics Ireland a home for our great sport. The NGTC has been designed to cater for all disciplines and will provide our future gymnastics stars with a national centre from which they can develop their competitive careers on an equal footing with the rest of the gymnastics world. The NIA also provides us with a superb base for our national and international events programme. While the official state opening is now completed we look forward to hosting a welcome event for the Gymnastics Ireland community and will shortly be contacting clubs with further details.'

Also speaking at the opening, Gymnastics Ireland Chairman Ger Rellis said:

'This is a project our CEO & I have worked on for over 8 years. It has always been about providing a national base of operations for the long term development of our sport. The NIA is one of the best facilities of its kind in the world and to see the realisation of this facility really has been a dream come true. We look forward to welcoming our membership to our new home in the coming months.'

The construction of the Sport Ireland National Indoor Arena began in January 2015 and it is designed to accommodate over 20 sports which are complemented by ancillary spectator, changing, media and conference facilities. The NGTC has been bespoke designed by Spieth to cater for all gymnastics disciplines.