Some of Kilkenny’s top athletes will go head to head this Saturday at a charity fundraising event in Hotel Kilkenny’s leisure centre.
The gym will be the battlefield for eleven different teams who are attempting to raise money for the O’ Neill Centre, a local facility for children with cerebral palsy.
The team panels read like a veritable who’s who of Kilkenny sporting success, with star performers from a variety of different codes all breaking a sweat in the gym at some stage of the day.
The Kilkenny hurling senior team will be sending two teams of eight to compete – one captained by Tommy Walsh and one captained by Jackie Tyrrell. The senior camogie team will be sending a team also.
There will be an all-star hurling ‘legends’ team featuring DJ Carey among others, and an all-star handball team captained by Ducksy Walsh. The Kilkenny Gardai have a team taking part, as do the Kilkenny army barracks. Hotel Kilkenny will also put forward a men’s team and a women’s team from their leisure centre.
The teams will use two treadmills, two rowing machines, two crosstrainers and two exercise bikes. All eight members of a team are exercising at the same time; each team member uses each machine for 15 minutes at a time.
The winning team will be the one whose members have ‘travelled’ the furthest over the course of their session – with the distances accumulated on each piece of gym equipment recorded and added up.
The first team to compete will be the army team, who begin their challenge bright and early at 7am on Saturday morning. The event will go on all day, with each of the eleven teams taking to the gym equpiment at designated intervals.
TG4 will be dropping in to see how things are going, and recently elected new Dail members Phil Hogan and John McGuinness are both hoping to stop by at some stage of the day. Members of the public are invited to come along to enjoy the day and show their support for the cause.
