Ireland’s women’s team step onto the European stage in Glasgow

4th August 2018, 12:24p.m. | International

4th August 2018, Sport HQ, Dublin; The Irish women’s team proudly represented our country yesterday and today in the 2018 European Championships in Glasgow with senior gymnast Meaghan Smith and junior team Emma Slevin, Jane Heffernan, Kate Molloy and Bathnaid Higgins.

Smith had a solid competition posting her best result on vault with a score of 13.033. The new junior team made quite the impression with the gymnastics bloggers who remarked about the huge improvement in standard of the next generation of Irish gymnasts. The young team scored a total of 140.764 to place 15th. Attention now shifts to the upcoming Youth Olympic Games and World Championships for the Irish women.

Commenting on their performance CEO of Gymnastics Ireland, Mr. Ciaran Gallagher said:

‘We are very proud of our gymnasts performance at the Europeans, Meaghan has improved massively and displayed real confidence in her performance. The junior women represent a new standard of female gymnast that Ireland as a nation has not produced before and it's only the start for them, they are a credit to our emerging performance system. On behalf of all at Gymnastics Ireland I would like to congratulate the gymnasts, coaches Sally Batley & Giacomo Camiciotti and our Performance & Technical Manager Sally Johnson on a great Championships. We now look forward to the men’s competition next week...’

Speaking of the results Sally Johnson, Gymnastics Ireland Performance & Technical Manager, said:

"Our gymnasts all competed and represented Ireland very well.

The junior team hit their targets and competed exceptionally well on bars showing greatly increased standards for this apparatus in Ireland. The gymnasts have an exciting future ahead of them and we look forward to them turning senior within the next 2 years.

Meaghan Smith has gained valuable experience at her first major international and returns to Dublin motivated to train and prepare for World Championships in Doha."

European Medallist, World Cup and 2018 Commonwealth Pommel-Horse Champion Rhys McClenaghan along with teammates Adam Steele and Andrew Smith will arrive this coming Monday at the SSE Hydro in Glasgow for the senior men’s team and individual qualifying rounds on Thursday 9th August.

Over the next ten days RTÉ will have two exclusive web channels on the RTÉ player covering all the 5 sports representing Ireland at the European Championships. For detailed information on streaming visit: https://www.rte.ie/player/ie/live/3/

Full scores and photos of the event can be viewed on the official website at https://www.europeanchampionships.com/