Ready to Meet and Compete in Minsk

The second edition of the European Games officially opens in Minsk today. The Games run from today to the 30th June and Team Ireland will be represented by 63 athletes across nine sports.
Among those wearing their Adidas Ireland team kit for the first time in competition are boxer Kellie Harrington, cyclist Ryan Mullen and Canoe Sprint racer Jenny Egan, pictured above.
The opening ceremony takes place this evening in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Those who watched the recent Chernobyl series on Sky Atlantic will recognise the city, though it is a different kind of fallout that some will be looking for among the dignitaries tonight.
Pat Hickey, once of these parts as President of the Olympic Council of Ireland was the main driver of these games which were first held in Baku four years ago. It had been planned to hold the second edition in Russia but sporting politics put paid to that and Minsk stepped forward.
Sport can be a great deliverer of rehabilitation and that’s obviously in the minds of the Belarus authorities looking to make a positive mark on their global reputation.
It is not expected that Hickey will play a part in the opening ceremony but if the team of photographers from Inpho and Sportsfile were to capture one image tonight it would surely be that of any meeting of Hickey and his successor Sarah Keane.
Once that is out of the way the focus can be on the sport. eir Sport will be carrying live and highlight packages throughout while Team Ireland will have media personnel on the ground feeding back to our news outlets here. Medals will deliver coverage.
Day one will be a quiet one for Ireland with Maeve Reidy being the sole Irish representative, competing in Archery. Three boxing events had originally been scheduled for the 21 June, but the strength and talent of the Team Ireland boxers has bought them several byes to later rounds.
“Preparations for this competition have been superb,” said Boxing Performance Director Bernard Dunne.
“We trained in Belfast for a few weeks, it was fantastic, and great preparation for our guys.”
“We are ready, we are as prepared as we can be. Now it’s just a matter of going out and fighting. Our guys are eager to get in, we want to get some action. We have a couple of byes, but eventually, we are going to have to fight the best. It doesn’t matter if we fight them tomorrow or in a few days time; we are ready and just want to show our best. That’s what our guys want to do.”