Proudly sponsored by The Western Hotel
World renowned athlete Catherina McKiernan will be a guest of Galway Community College and PREDA Galway in the college auditorium on Friday the 18th of November at 8pm. Admission is free and is open to members of the public.
This promises to be a memorable evening listening to Catherina discuss the importance of sports psychology while talking openly about her hugely successful career and her ChiRunning programme which is helping to revolutionise the way we run. The audience will be invited to partake in a question and answers session hosted by Mr Shane McClearn, Head of the Post Leaving Cert Sports Dept. in Galway Community College.
Galway Community College are a leading provider of further education sports courses in the west of Ireland. These include fulltime FETAC Level 5 courses in Sport and Recreation, Exercise and Fitness and GAA coaching courses.
The college has also successfully launched a new FETAC Level 6 course in Community Sports Development as well as offering a range of part-time evening GAA coaching education programmes. Galway Community College is delighted to host an evening with athletics great, Catherina McKiernan to further strengthen its sporting links which include an excellent working relationship with Galway GAA, FAI,GCSP, NCEF, UL among others.
Catherina is a proud supporter of PREDA’s E Card campaign which will also be launched on the night of her talk. The charity is based in the Philippines and strives to free children from the shackles of child prostitution and from adult prisons. PREDA helps to rehabilitate the children educationally, psychologically, medically and socially. Sport plays a key part in this process so it is great to have a sports person of Catherina’s stature lending her support to the children rescued by PREDA. Many thanks to the owner of The Western Hotel Mr Eugene Keville, past pupil of Galway Community College, for his support of PREDA and for sponsoring Catherina’s visit to GCC.
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Biography of Catherina McKiernan
Catherina McKiernan is regarded as one of Irelands greatest ever athletes. In 1992, her first major success, the silver medal in the World cross country championships in Boston. Catherina was pipped for gold by home favourite Lynn Jennings. Amazingly Catherina repeated the feat, finished second in 1993, 1994 and 1995. On each of those years, she won the World Cross Country Grand Prix as the most consistent cross country competitor in the world over those four successive years. In between in 1994, Catherina became the inaugural European Cross Country Champion.
Having competed in the 1992 Olympic Games at 3000 metres in Barcelona, Catherina made her second Olympic appearance in 1996 making the 10,000 metre final in Atlanta but she was not fond of track racing. This despite personal bests of 14.49 over 5,000 and 31.08 over 10,000 metres on the track. At this stage, road racing and a marathon running were moving into Catherina’s focus. She made her marathon debut in Berlin in September 1997 running the 26.2 miles in a new Irish record time of 2h 23m 44s which stood at the time as the fastest debut marathon by a woman in history.
The following April (1998), Catherina became the first and only Irish winner of the London marathon (2h 26m). Then in November 1998, an attempt at the world record was thwarted by windy conditions in Amsterdam. Nevertheless, Catherina.
