Limerick Paralympian Róisín Ní Riain backs Sport Ireland's Changing the Game campaign

LIMERICK Paralympian Róisín Ní Riain is backing Sport Ireland's Changing the Game campaign to support Sport Ireland’s Diversity and Inclusion Policy which expresses its vision for a sport sector that celebrates diversity, promotes inclusion, and is pro-active in providing opportunities for lifelong participation for everyone.

The Diversity & Inclusion policy identified a number of strategic pillars which will guide Sport Ireland in the implementation of the policy. Those Pillars are Change, Communication, Access, Capacity & Leadership.

Seventeen-year-old Limerick Paralympian Roisin Ni Riain from Drombanna, is supporting the campaign. The rising Paralympic swimmer star first came to prominence at the Tokyo Paralympics when, on her Paralympic debut and at just 16 years-old, she made the finals in each of her six events is backing the campaign.

Speaking at the launch she said: "In Limerick where I train, all high-performance swimmers train together. I thrive in being in a big group of people with so much competition. You have swimmers preparing for the Olympics and the Paralympics all training together; that is a wonderful thing.

"I'm treated the same and I like that". She provided advice on how clubs could be open and inclusive; "You mightn't know anything about an athlete's specific disability so ask the athlete to tell you what they're experiencing and learn together and see what works."

The visually impaired swimmer won her first World Championship medals – bronze in the S13 100m Backstroke and 100m Butterfly – in Madeira in June 2022. She was also fourth in three other finals and just missed out a third World medal in the 200m Individual Medley final by fractions of a second when she was pipped by America’s world record holder.

Roisin has been swimming since she was six and trains with Swim Ireland’s elite training squad at the University of Limerick where she is coached by John Szaranek. She has just started her final year of secondary school at the Gaelcholaiste in Limerick City and will complete her Leaving Cert next Summer, despite a training schedule that sees her do nine two-hour pool sessions a-week, most of them done before school every morning.

Her next major event is the 2023 World Championships in Manchester (a month or so after the Leaving Cert) which will also mark the start of swimming’s Paralympic Qualification campaign for Paris 2024.

Roisin is supporting Sport Ireland’s Changing the Game campaign which is calling on all those involved in sport to consider how they can play their part by visiting sportireland.ie/sportforall.