Photos Courtesy of Sandymount Hotel
By Paul Carton
Sandymount Hotel gave the Irish women’s hockey team a well-deserved homecoming last Sunday with dinner drinks and praise. The World Cup silver medallists have now jumped to 8th place in the FIH rankings and on foot of this the Government have allocated €500,000 to Hockey Ireland. In total the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport have allocated €1.75 million to the Board of Sport who said this will be used to prepare athletes for the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic games in 2020. Speaking about the announcement Hockey Ireland’s CEO, Jerome Pels said “Hockey Ireland is absolutely delighted with today’s announcement of additional funding of €500,000. This is a great addition to the already substantial high-performance funding we have received for 2018, which included a special grant for World Cup participation. We are very grateful for the continued support of Sport Ireland in providing funding, facilities and services that allow our players to play at the highest level of our sport. This is fantastic news helping Hockey to progress towards Olympic Qualification and a good result in Tokyo”.
