Kilkenny Sport Focus Sport

Mary Fitzgerald has been making tremendous progress in Para Athletics events over the past ve years, and next weekend the Callan native represents Ireland in the Shot Putt competition at the Para Athletics World Championships which take place in Paris from July 8th17th.

Mary who competes for Gowran Athletic Club has plenty of experience on the international stage having competed in e Shot Putt, Discus and Javelin competitions.

In 2021, she was a Bronze Medalist in e Shot Putt competition at the European Championships in Bydgoszcz (Poland), before producing a superb performance to nish 6th at e Paralympics in Tokyo on her debut appearance in e Paralympics.

As mentioned, Mary will be in Paris representing Ireland next weekend, and she will be hoping to return to the French Capital in 2024 to compete in her Second Paralympics. e Callan native has been a very busy lady over the past few years, as along with her Athletics committments she completed a 4-Year Degree course in Occupational erapy in UCC. While in UCC, she was awarded a Quercus Sports Scholarship for the 4 years that was a great help in balancing both her studies and been able to compete at the highest level.

Mary got a taste of the big time in Athlone in 2018 when winning double gold in both Javelin and Discus and a silver medal in the Shot Putt at e International Wheelchair and Amputee Sports Youth World Games, while a year later in 2019 she won triple gold again at the Youth World Games in United Arab Emirates.

Mary's Para classi cation