Ireland qualifies to the Youth Olympic Games in Baku with a historic result

23rd June 2018, 18:19p.m. | International

23rd June 2018, Baku, Azerbaijan; Irish gymnasts made history today by qualifying a place for Ireland for the first time at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games at the Artistic Gymnastics qualifications in Baku, Azerbaijan. Emma Slevin hit 16th place with an All Around score of 48.366 with the highest score of 13.066 on Vault.

Team-mate Jane Heffernan came 34th place in qualification with an All Around score of 42.098.

Commenting on the achievements CEO of Gymnastics Ireland, Mr. Ciaran Gallagher said: “Huge congratulations to our delegation in Baku for qualifying Ireland’s first place at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires. Another historic achievement for our sport and great reward for all the hours of hard work put in by Emma, Jane and their coaches.”

Sally Johnson, Performance and Technical Manager of Gymnastics Ireland also commented: “This a great success as it is a historic result for Ireland, this is Ireland’s first ever qualification to the Youth Olympic Games for gymnastics. Exceptionally well done to Giacomo Camiciotti and our national performance coach Sally Batley also personal coach to both gymnasts.

Both gymnasts have gained valuable experience from this event , Emma competed with ease and confidence performing a clean competition. They will now prepare for the Junior European Championships in Glasgow this August.”

The Youth Olympic Games will be held on October 6-12, 2018 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Full scores of the day can be viewed here...

Well done to Team Ireland gymnasts, coaches and to our Judges Mary Murray who judged Floor and Mairead Kavanagh who was supervisor on Vault and D1 on Beam as a member of the UEG Women's Technical Committee.