Celebration event to be held at SSE arena for Northern Ireland Olympic heroes

An event to honour Northern Ireland’s Olympic and Paralympic competitors will be held at the SSE Arena in Belfast, Communities Minister Gordon Lyons has confirmed.

Mr Lyons told MLAs that it was right that the achievements of local athletes should be marked.

Northern Ireland enjoyed its most successful ever Olympics at Paris with six athletes bringing home seven medals, four golds, a silver and two bronze.

Prior to Paris, there had not been an Olympic gold medal winner from Northern Ireland for 36 years since Stephen Martin and Jimmy Kirkwood were members of the Great Britain hockey team in Seoul and no individual gold medal winner since Mary Peters won the pentathlon in 1972.

However, Paris saw gold medal success for Rhys McClenaghan in gymnastics, Jack McMillan and Daniel Wiffen in swimming and Hannah Scott in rowing.

Some Northern Ireland athletes represented the Great Britain team in Paris while others represented Ireland.

At Stormont, DUP Strangford MLA Harry Harvey asked Mr Lyons: “What plans do you have to ensure that we adequately celebrate and recognise the phenomenal achievements by all our Northern Ireland athletes at both the Olympics and the Paralympics?”

The minister responded: “I know that he has an interest in this with a gold medal winner coming from his own constituency and I was delighted to be able to celebrate with Rhys, Jack and others.

“I am pleased to be able to say there will be a celebration event for all of our athletes, not just those who were medal winners.

“It is absolutely right that we celebrate their achievements and that event will be in the SSE Arena.

“I may even invite all members here as well so we can all celebrate together.”

Mr Lyons also said it was important that the Olympics and Paralympics leaves a legacy for sport in Northern Ireland.