Breakout stars of 2017: here are ten young Irish athletes who will be celebrating the new year with dreams of success in the next twelve months.
Another year has passed, and with it another string of names are on the lips of Irish sports fans. The O'Donovan brothers most immediately spring to mind. This time last year, only those who followed rowing or who had a keen eye for up-and-coming Irish sporting talents would have picked out Gary and Paul in a crowd. Now the pair can barely walk down any street in Ireland (and, after their appearance on the 'Graham Norton Show' tonight, probably Britain) without being accosted by screaming members of either sex.
While we're not necessarily predicting a breakthrough of O'Donovan-esque proportions for any of the athletes below (it is a non-Olympic year, after all), here are a few young sportspeople to keep an eye out for this year.
These individuals have already achieved great success in their short careers, but are not quite on the national radar yet. By the end of the year, they just might be.
Boxing: James McGivern
It was evident just from speaking to McGivern a couple of months ago that he is cut from the same cloth as fellow Belfast men Michael Conlan and Paddy Barnes. McGivern is a Commonwealth Youth Games and European Schoolboy champion and was knocked out of the European Youth Championships this summer by a Russian on a highly controversial decision despite dominating the fight. All being well, he should be gunning for a medal in Tokyo in 2020 - but keep an eye out for him at the World Championships in Hamburg next summer.
Camogie: Orla O'Dwyer
It was a successful year for the Tipperary minor camogie team, as they won the All-Ireland title. Of great help to them in achieving that was the Player of the Match in the final, Orla O'Dwyer. O'Dwyer featured prominently for the Tipp senior side as well, scoring 0-4 in the Premier County's dramatic one-point defeat to Wexford in the All-Ireland quarter-final in July. O'Dwyer has all the potential to become a household name in the sport and we can expect her to be at the forefront of Tipp's campaign in 2017.
Triathlon: Russell White
A very talented swimmer from the Lisburn club outside Belfast, White turned his attention to triathlon around the age of 17 and immediately started to progress, taking the Ulster triathlon scene by storm. Training at Stirling University in Scotland brought him on even further and he was the first reserve for the Rio Olympics this year, training alongside Bryan Keane during Keane's preparation for the Games. In his first ever ITU World Triathlon Grand Final in Cozumel in September, White finished in a fine 36th place - only four places behind Keane - and looks well poised to take on the mantle of being Ireland's number 1 triathlete in 2017.
Athletics: Sarah Lavin
It's been a tough 2016 for Sarah Lavin. The Limerick hurdler, who won a European Youth bronze in 2011 and a European Junior silver two years later, hoped to compete in Rio but suffered a stress fracture in June and spent much of the summer in crutches, as she told us back in November. Lavin holds the Irish junior records at 60m and 100m hurles after beating marks previously set by one Derval O'Rourke (and her career wasn't too bad). Expect Lavin to be champing at the bit when the European indoor athletics championships take place in Serbia in March.
Football: Chiedozie Ogbene
Cork GAA and Nemo Rangers' loss has been Irish soccer's gain. Ogbene came on in the second half of Cork's much-celebrated victory over Dundalk in the FAI Cup final at the Aviva Stadium and gave some glimpses of the athleticism and skill that has City fans hoping it'll be a couple of years before he is tempted to move overseas, as seems inevitable. Ogbene, also a fine Gaelic footballer, was a star player on the Cork under-19 side who tasted national success in the Enda McGuill Cup in 2016 and will be looking to push on and establish himself in the club's League of Ireland side in 2017.
(Go to 2:53 in the video below)
Swimming: Curtis Coulter
Coulter was drafted into the Irish men's medley relay team for the European Championships in May off the back of his performances in the 100m freestyle at the Irish Open Championships, which he won in a time of 50.13. Coulter represented Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games two years ago with his best individual result being a twelfth place overall in the same event. While he didn't pick up an individual gong at the recent Irish short course championships, Coulter is earmarked by Swim Ireland as a Tokyo 2020 hopeful and will no doubt be aiming to use 2017 as a platform for further improvement.
MMA: James Gallagher
The man they call the 'Strabanimal' told Balls.ie after his win against Anthony Taylor at the 3Arena this month that he wants to be "the best in the game", starting with taking the Bellator featherweight title. Gallagher, still only 20 years of age, is 5-0 in his pro career so far and will be trying to build up to follow in the footsteps of a certain SBG team-mate and bring another featherweight title to these shores by the end of 2017.
Gaelic football: Ella Durkan
It's been a year of great success for Bredagh GAC in Belfast, with the men winning the Down intermediate football and hurling titles and the ladies winning the Down senior title as well as the Ulster minor 'A' title and county minor hurling shield. One of the main players in that minor football win was joint-captain Ella Durkan. Durkan was also pivotal in the senior championship for Bredagh, bagging 1-1 in the Down senior final against Castlewellan. Down ladies suffered disappointment this summer, losing in August to Wicklow in the All-Ireland intermediate championship. But if Durkan can replicate her club form at county level next season, Down will have a great asset going into 2017 and beyond.
Rugby: Caelan Doris
Doris captained Ireland under-18s in their Five Nations campaign in March, including a hat-trick-scoring display from number 8 against Scotland (see below). The Blackrock man played in the Leinster under-20/development squad side in the inter-provincial series in autumn and scored a try for the Ireland under-20s in their recent match against a 'Munster Development XV' at Thomond Park. After an incredible year for Irish rugby in which (among other things) the under-20 side bagged a first ever win for an Irish men's team against New Zealand, Caelan Doris is one of the names to keep an eye out for in 2017.
Golf: Annabel Wilson
Irish golf fans would probably make the point that Annabel Wilson has already made what one would call a 'breakthrough', but 2017 will doubtlessly see her star continue to rise after a brilliant 2016. The 15-year-old from Lurgan, playing alongside Leona Maguire and Olivia Mehaffey, helped Ireland to a bronze medal at the World Amateur Team Championships in September and is previously a two-time Irish Girls Close champion. She finished sixth in the European Young Masters competition in the summer and, with Wilson eligible to compete in the competition again in 2017, expect her to be gunning for the title this time around.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZiJnBELcJU
